The Con
by journaliar
Summary: Who, exactly, am I trying to fool?" Cam
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So rock solid writers block has created this epic first chapter of a 2 part fic...yeah, i dunno how that happened but Read and review if you'd like.

* * *

The Con

* * *

I don't know what I'm doing.

Freddie's gazing at me under the orangish hall light and I should have those butterflies flipping and flopping in my stomach because we're in high school now and its Freddie, who's gotten exponentially hotter since middle school and has liked me since the beginning of time, but I don't.

I don't.

Something's wrong.

"Did you have a good time tonight?" He asks, his hand a little sweaty and a little clammy around mine as he laces our fingers together but even though our fingers are interlocked, it doesn't feel like we fit. More like forcing two puzzle pieces together when they don't suit one another.

"Yeah, I did." I smile and its not a lie because I like hanging out with Freddie and everyone loves laser tag but I seriously doubt that's what he's asking.

"Me too." Freddie laughs nervously and I know he's going to kiss me because when you go out with someone that's just what you do, kiss and hug and touch but right now the urge to pull my hand from his and scurry inside of my apartment is strong. "So."

"Sooo…" I draw out and then Freddie is smiling his handsome smile and leaning forward and kissing me and there's just nothing…

No electricity or excitement.

Nothing.

Just generic lip to lip contact. I might as well be shaking his hand.

What's wrong with me?

"Uh, thanks." I say dumbly, pulling away and Freddie licks his lips and watches me with big brown eyes and I want to like him more than a friend, the idea of falling in love with one of your best friends every girls dream, but I find myself pretending more often than not.

"Anytime." He grins, kissing my hand before dropping it and I flex my fingers absently. "So I better go inside. You know how my mom gets…"

"Yeah, okay then." I smile and he smiles too. "Then I'm just going to go inside too." I say gesturing at the door and walking into the apartment feels like escaping and freedom which isn't right. It just isn't.

I'm not really expecting to find Sam sprawled on my couch but there she is when I walk inside, shutting the door behind me and I'm not really that surprised either.

"What up?" She calls, legs hooked over the back of the couch while she hangs nearly upside down off of the cushion, blond hair curling everywhere.

"What're you doing here?" I laugh, running a hand through my fancy hair and toeing off my heels.

" I needed a place to stay because my Mom is having a power Pilates class at our house with her friends and if I have to see one more old lady in a sports bra I'm gonna kill myself." She says, her eyes scanning over me quickly and I pull down the hem of my shorts self consciously. "How was your date with the dork?"

"It was fine." I exhale tiredly, walking to the coffee table and picking up the empty boxes of candy and cans of soda that could only belong to Sam. "Are you finished with this?" I ask, glancing at her over my shoulder and Sam's gaze is focused on my legs.

I swallow self consciously, my stomach doing a funny little dance at the look on her face and before I can ask her what she's looking at, before the idea to ask even hits me, she's blinking up at me like she just came back from somewhere far away.

"Nice stems." Sam grins practically peering up at me upside down before reaching up and gesturing towards the half full can of Peppy Cola.

"Thanks…I think." I put the can in her hand and then she's distracted by the television, gulping down her soda and I scoop up the rest of her garbage stupidly.

I dump her trash and make my way back to the couch, dropping down into the negative space that Sam's ridiculously flexible body makes and I can hear her shift to make room for me. Her jeans making a funny sound on the material of the couch.

"Hey Carls." Sam breathes, reaching out and scratching her nails on the inside of my arm and I have to grind my teeth to not make a sound at the feeling of her short nails scoring over my skin causes and God, what is wrong with me?

"Yeah?" I croak, glancing down at her and she's still hanging mostly off of the couch and the angles awkward but I still look.

"You know what's a funny word?" She asks thoughtfully, like maybe she's been contemplating this for the entire day and just waiting for me to come home so she can share her thoughts. "Platypus."

"Random." I exhale, feeling a smile pull at my lips and if there were ever one word to define Samantha Puckett, that would be it. She's random and scattered and sort of like an explosion of light and personality and where I like to plan and schedule she's okay with just winging it and something about that just draws me to her.

"And who thought of making a mammal with a beak? Now that's random." She says taking another swallow of soda and I watch her throat work quickly.

"You've had a lot of time to think about this haven't you?" I question and Sam looks at me with that smirk. That smirk that's all mischievous and makes me think that she has in fact thought this whole platypus situation over while simultaneously doing something she probably shouldn't have.

"Yup." Is all she says and even after I turn towards the television where she's watching an episode of Girly Cow I've never seen before, I can still feel her bright eyes on me.

"So, I'm going to bed." I announce, "Is your mom picking you up or are you staying the night?" I ask and I don't know why I do because it's late and Sam's mom wouldn't come pick her up because she works early in the mornings and its not like I _want _Sam to go home.

"What do you think?" Sam grunts, half rolling and half flipping to her feet from the couch and I sit on the couch and watch her stretch. The years making her taller with long, lanky limbs and pale freckled skin. "Lets hit the hay. I've got big plans for us tomorrow."

I don't even want to know what the heck her plans are because it usually involves one or both of us getting in trouble and or meat, instead I let her lead me up the stairs to my room, my fingers sliding between hers before I even realize it.

"So what's it like to kiss Fredward?" Sam asks once we're inside of my room, the door closed and I go to my drawer to pull some pajamas out for the both of us. "When your lips touch do you, like, transfer files from one another? Ya know, 'cause he's a computer geek?" Sam laughs, her grin disappearing behind the polka dot pajama pants and white ribbed tank top I throw at her face. "I'll take that as a yes." Sam mutters and I roll my eyes, tucking my clothes under my arm and heading for the bathroom.

"When I come back you better be wearing pajamas and in bed." I order and Sam just grins, straightening her back and throwing me a sloppy salute.

"Yes, ma'am." she laughs and I shake my head and disappear into the bathroom.

When I step back into the room, teeth squeaky clean and face scrubbed, Sam has surprisingly done at least one of the things I asked and is wearing the pajamas I gave her but she's standing at my vanity and not in bed.

"Hey, can I have this?" Sam calls over her shoulder, holding up my Pear Pod and I frown, pulling down the blankets on the bed.

"No." I laugh and she sighs dramatically, turning around to watch me.

"Sharing is caring, Carls." She informs and I raise an eyebrow and don't bother fighting the smile curling my lips.

"Yeah but I don't care enough to just give you my Pear Pod."

"See? Now that? That, I refuse to believe." Sam laughs bouncing onto the bed like a playful puppy and I grin at her as she flops backwards on the mattress.

"C'mon kiddo, lets go to bed. I've had a long day of watching television." She yawns, patting the sheet beside her and for some reason I feel a blush push hotly up my neck.

And I know sharing a bed with Sam isn't anything new because we've been sharing a bed for as long as I can remember but its different now. We're older and the beds not as big as it was when we were young and we spend the nights with our arms and legs touching and tangled and its more comforting than claustrophobic. It's comforting and something else that's hard to put my finger on.

I fall into bed on my stomach, propping myself up on my elbows and pushing my hair out of my face while I look at Sam. Sam who's bright blue eyes are easy to just look into despite the fact that half the time I don't know what she's thinking.

She rolls onto her side, wrapping her arms and legs around me before pulling me down half on top of her and I go with a grunt while she twists to turn off the bed lamp which sits on the side table that is on what is decidedly her side of my bed.

Her skin is soft and warm and I've always noticed how Sam seems to run so much hotter than every other normal human being. How on days when its raining and icy and we're walking home and I'm tucked as far as possible into my jacket and scarf, Sam's drenched an laughing in just jeans and a shirt. It's amazing.

"Hey Carly?" She breathes like maybe I'm asleep but I'm far from it because every time she slides her leg against mine its like someone is shocking me in a way that makes me just want more.

"Yeah Sam?" I yawn rolling onto my back and staring up at the ceiling and Sam reaches out to play with my hair, her nails skating over my scalp.

"You know what else is a funny word?" I can hear the smile in her voice and it makes me grin a little. "Snorkel."

I laugh, "Go to sleep, Sam."

* * *

"This is a bad idea." Freddie's voice sounds tight and terrified while he points out for the millionth time today that maybe Sam's big plan isn't the best idea.

He'd said it when we hopped on a bus downtown to meet Sam's used car salesman uncle so he could give her the car she bought for $300 dollars and a promise to vouch for him if and when the cops asked.

He'd said it after the crash driving course Sam's cousin had given her in an empty mosque parking lot.

And he's saying it again as we cruise back to my apartment with Sam doing a fairly competent job of not crashing.

"Carls, tell your boyfriend to shut it." Sam calls from behind the wheel, her eyes darting up into the rear view mirror and I shake my head at her from the backseat where my seatbelt is pulled tight over my chest.

Freddie is my boyfriend. I mean, he asked to become official after our 9th date after I'd finally just given in and gone out with him and I'd said yes so there's no reason why I should cringe when I hear the word. But I do.

"No, I won't _shut it_!" Freddie cries, hands curled around the dashboard and I tip my head against the warm window absently. "You don't have a license, Sam."

"License Shmicense." Sam defends and Freddie whips his head around to look at me helplessly but I'm smirking and not helping at all really. "No one's holding you hostage. You're free to get out of the car, Fredward."

"Fine then. Pull over." Freddie insists and Sam just laughs that endearingly maniacal laugh.

"Nope." She says simply, "If you wanna get out you gotta do it while we're moving." She teases and there seems to be a real chance of Freddie hopping out of a moving vehicle because he's so terrified and I figure its time for me to step in.

"Knock it off, guys." I sigh, "Sam get us home safely."

"You got it cupcake."

I look out the window, at the city zooming by and when my eyes find their way to Sam's rear view mirror again, her blue eyes are staring at me and I smile.

"Eyes on the road, Sam." I chastise and she grins, her eyes flitting to the road.

We make it back to my apartment relatively safely and Freddie hops out before the beat up old car can rumble to a full stop, his hands on his knees gasping for air.

"Freddie, are you okay?" I ask getting out of the car and rushing to his side, he nods quickly, straightening.

"Oh, he's fine. He's just being a little bi-"

"Sam!" I cut her off quickly over the slam of her door and Freddie whirls around, finger pointed.

"You are crazy!" He yells, voice dropping and booming and Sam just lifts a single, brow in that careless way that I know infuriates him.

"I've been called worse."

"Lets just go inside." I soothe, a hand on his back and he nods, gesturing for my hand and I give it to him awkwardly, my knuckles bumping into his. "Sam, you coming?"

When I look at her, her eyes are focused on my hand, tucked into Freddie's but she looks up at me and smiles.

"Nope, I just got a new car. I need to break it in." She says, patting the hood of the car lovingly and I look at the beat up old thing in all of its rusted glory.

"Sam." I try and I don't know why because Sam is free to do whatever she wants but I dunno, I want her to come upstairs with me so we can lay around on the couch and eat cereal out of the box and watch Girly Cow even though we're too old for that show now but I don't say anything but her name and she pushes away from her car.

"I'll see you two love birds later and remember if your spunky cover your monkey." She laughs before climbing back into her car and taking off. I watch the lights of her car disappear around the corner before I let Freddie tug me into the building.

* * *

"How did you do that?!" Freddie whispers in utter disbelief and I'm also struck more or less dumfounded but Sam just shrugs, twisting on her stool back and forth in front of the breakfast bar and putting down the completely solved Rubik's Cube on the countertop with the a shrug.

"I dunno. Math or something." She shrugs again and Freddie gawks at her even more, leaning over from the other side of the bar and picking up the cube with its solidly colored sides.

"Sam, that's unbelievable!" I squeal, especially coming from the girl who claims to not know basic mathematic principles.

"Yeah, I guess." She yawns, plucking a bright red apple out of the fruit bowl in front of her and taking a bite. "I'm full of surprises."

Freddie looks horrified and confused and a little bit like his head might explode but before he can really interrogate Sam his cell phone rings and its his mom.

I can hear Mrs. Benson's quick, always concerned voice even a few feet away from him.

"Okay mom…I don't need one…I said…Fine, I'm on my way….Calm down mom!" Freddie flips his phone shut and I give him a sympathetic look because, man, his mom is intense sometimes.

"I have to go take a bubble bath." He grunts unhappily and Sam whispers 'gross'. "But after, I'm gonna figure out how the heck you did this." He says gesturing with the cube before setting it back down.

"I'll see you later?" I breathe because when you're someone's girlfriend you suppose to want to see them as much and as often as possible even though its been forever since I've hung out with just Sam and I wouldn't mind not necessarily seeing him again till tomorrow.

"Yep." He says leaning over to kiss my cheek softly and ignoring the vomiting noises Sam's making. "This isn't over Sam." He hisses as he walks towards the door and Sam shakes her head.

"You're fly isn't closed, Freddie." She mimics back and I have to stifle a laugh against my hand as Freddie looks down in horror and scurries out the door turning about twelve different shades of red on the way. "Freddie, why're you so stupid?" She mutters to herself around a bite of apple.

"So how did you do it?" I wonder, picking up the cube again, twirling it in my hand and Sam looks up managing to chew and look offended at the same time.

"You don't think I can solve a Rubik's Cube?" She asks indignantly and I smile reassuringly at her even while my brain takes note of the sticky sweet apple juice trickling down her chin and the way her tongue quickly darts to lick it up.

"I'll just preface this by saying that I love you very much." I grin and she cocks an eyebrow at me. "But you're not exactly what I'd call a genius."

"Well you're right!" Sam declares, taking another huge bite of apple. "I found this website that tells you how to solve the Rubik's Cube step by step. I just did it to mess with Freddie." She admits hoping down from the stool and heading to the couch and I lean against the bar and watch her drop down on the sofa.

"You did all of that just to mess with Freddie?" I laugh and Sam shrugs, kicking her feet up on the table.

"I like making your boyfriend's little head explode." Sam admits, making exploding gestures with her hands before licking at her wrist where juice from the apple she's holding has trickled down.

"Ya know, if you put as much effort into school as you do into torturing Freddie…" I start and she cuts me off with a flip of her fruit holding hand.

"I know. I know. I'd have straight A's." She says just to get the words out so she can talk about something else. "Anyway, lets go do something. Ever since you hooked up with Freddork it feels like I hardly see my best friend anymore."

I feel myself beaming at her because her words make something swell inside my chest.

"Unless you were doing something with Freddie later." She adds awkwardly and I do have tentative plans with Freddie for later in the day but Sam is looking at me like she has ideas and how can I say no?

"What do you have in mind?"

As it turns out she doesn't have a 'plan', just a list of things that she'd like to do with me as her accomplice.

So we spend the afternoon reeking havoc on the general public and eating Fat Cakes until we end up in the business park, surrounded by tall buildings that the sun has no choice but to set, hot and pink, between them.

"Sam, what're you doing?"

I watch Sam give me that look, that look that means she's about to do something that normal people just don't do and that makes me smile even though I shouldn't.

People pass by us, men in business suits and women with expensive clothes, some giving Sam funny looks as she bounces up and down on one leg in her board shorts and tee shirt, untying her right shoe and I ignore those people because they don't know Sam.

They don't know that Sam just does things like this and its not weird, its amazing.

She pulls off her socks and shoe in one move, then does the other so she's standing there barefoot on the hot pavement while important people pass by and stare but she doesn't flinch under their scrutiny or at the heated cement and even as I glance around and hiss, "Sam." I wish I could be more like her.

"Aw, c'mon Carls." She says with that smile that's all challenge. "It's fun." Like its good enough reason to take off my shoes and socks and splash around in the water fountain in the middle of the business park, that has buildings instead of trees, with her. And maybe I'm the idiot. Maybe it is reason enough. Of course it is.

I watch her jump into the huge fountain, splashing around and stealing change and while I'm pretty sure this is illegal in one way or another, Sam is doing her taunting dance which involves a lot of butt shaking and at least one pelvic thrust, while water shoots up into the air and rains down around her and before I realize it I'm toeing off my shoes blindly because I can't tear my eyes away from her.

"Look at you, Carly Shay." Sam greets me as I step into the icy fountain water up to my knees and she takes my hands with her wet ones, her blond hair curling damp against her neck and chin. "Living on the wild side." She says its like she's just so proud of me and if the heat beaming down from the sun wasn't already making my face flush, that would've done it.

"Yeah well don't get use to it." I laugh as she spins us around in a circle, coins and moss making my feet slip a little but Sam is there like always, smiling that brilliant smile and holding me upright which shouldn't be right because Sam is smaller and thinner than me but it never really feels like it because Sam just has so much bursting free of her small frame its like she's 10 feet tall. "Because when you finally get arrested someone's going to have to bail you out."

"But until that inevitable day." Sam says, reaching down to splash water at me without letting go of one of my hands. "I'm gonna take pleasure in your delinquencies. First its playing in water fountains…" She grins spraying me with water and I sputter and get her back.

"Then I'm robbing a bank and demanding 20 million dollars in small, unmarked bills." I laugh and Sam tightens her hand around mine and for some reason I feel it all the way through my toes.

"A girl after my own heart." Sam grins, blue eyes clear and I just shake my head and kick some water at her because her words do funny things to my stomach.

"Hey, what're you girls doing in there." An old guy in a rent-a-cop uniform asks and we're so busted. He walks over to the stone edge of the fountain.

"Just cooling off, Sir." I blurt, absolutely ready to plead for forgiveness.

"Is that so?" He asks turning to look at Sam, who is thoroughly soaked and glaring at him. "What's your name?"

"Rebecca Berkewitz." She blurts out, using her foot to kick a wave of water on to the security guard, splashing the front of his pants and then she's grabbing my wrists and pulling me out of the fountain, stopping only to scoop up our shoes before tugging me behind her while we sprint down the sidewalk barefoot.

We run till we're back at my building, barefoot the entire way and when we stop, mostly dry and laughing in the my living room I can't stop looking at Sam. Her hair is everywhere, curls separating here and there and I reach up to free an especially tangled strand. Her hair is soft and warm between my fingers and when I pull away I rub the pads of my fingers together absently.

"Thanks." She huffs, licking her lips and I just shrug a little, still grinning as something inside my chest, important parts of me feel like they're trying to break past my ribs and spill out onto the rug.

I touch my stomach to make sure everything stays where its supposed to just as the front door opens and Freddie comes in and things switch and slide and click and the grin fades from Sam's mouth and that pounding feeling gives one more thud before stopping

"What have you guys been up to?" He asks, looking me over and I give him a halfhearted smile.

"You know, things that get girls hot, breathless and wet." Sam says easily and I'm pretty sure that Freddie chokes on his tongue but its hard to tell when my stomach is flipping like it is.

* * *

Sam has a new obsession.

It's these little square candies that come in a little tin and are imported from Germany or somewhere just as far away that makes her have to get them from Rip Off Rodney and I don't necessarily get the appeal because they're so sour that they sting the inside of my mouth but Sam likes them and so for the last three days she's been eating those little candies and in direct correlation, has been walking around with a blue mouth

And I mean really, really blue like she swallowed a Smurf or something with her bright blue lips and tongue which is just as concerning as the fact that I doubt that those candies have been approved by the FDA.

And I'm not sure why mind is fixating on Sam and her tiny blue candies while I'm sitting on my couch making out with Freddie.

Because it's not like Freddie's kissing is boring because he has good technique, soft lips and respectable saliva distribution and I know that if I were more into it that I'd be having a grand ole time but I'm not.

I'm not and I totally should be.

What is wrong with me?

I pull back a little, frustrated and Freddie's eyes open, his eyelashes dark and jagged this close up while he cups my face.

"What's wrong?" Freddie asks, peering at me in the dim light and before I can even figure out how to even start to explain, the door is blowing open and Sam is rushing in, flipping on the lights, hinges swinging in her wake.

"Knock that off." She exhales gesturing at me and Freddie and I scoot away from him instinctually. "I have a serious problem."

"What is it?" Freddie groans, dropping his head back on the couch and I give him a sympathetic look before glancing back up at Sam who is wind blown and practically vibrating with energy.

Sam sticks her blue tongue out at him before digging into her pocket and producing her tin of candies.

"Carly," She starts with just a hint of panic in her voice. "These things are making my pee glow in the dark!"

"Huh?"

"Glow! You know, phosphorescent!" She cries, popping another candy in her mouth and I frown.

"Well stop eating them!" I bark and she rolls her eyes, licking her blue lips.

"That's not an option. What's plan B?"

I stand quickly, snatching the metal tin out of Sam's hand before she can even think to close her fingers.

"Hey!" she yelps, lunging at me and I slap her hand away and head to the garbage disposal with Sam watching me with wide puppy dog eyes.

"You asked me for help." I say sadly, dumping the candy down the sink.

"Yeah, help not torture." I can barely hear her words over the roar and grind of the garbage disposal. She drops down on the couch beside Freddie, her chin dropping into her palm and Freddie gives her an annoyed look that she returns.

"Leave." Freddie groans and Sam rolls her eyes.

"Why so you can resume awkwardly mackin' on Carly? I don't think so. I'm doing her a favor." Sam grunts, shifting over and digging the remote out of the cushions and flipping on the television as I step over her outstretched legs.

"Macking?" I question the odd choice of words and she nods and drop down on the other side of Freddie, who's hand automatically finds my knee.

"Yeah, macking. Kissing, tonsil hockey, swapping spit." Sam clarifies, licking her blue lips and then its silent between the three of us, Sam's channel flipping like a metronome.

Suddenly, Freddie groans like he can't take it, dropping his head back against the couch again and when I glance past him with a grin, Sam is already watching me with curious eyes and before I can say anything she's looking away.

* * *

"Today's Saturday." My voice sounds too big, filling the space between me and Sam in my bed and leaking out of the blanket where its pulled up over our heads. "The street fair is this afternoon."

"Then why are we up at the butt crack of dawn?" Sam's voice is more fitting, quiet and intimate and in all fairness it is the butt crack of dawn. My body so use to waking up early during the week that I do it on the weekend.

It's supposed to be almost a 70 degrees and humid today but its so early that its cold. That rare, in between place where the sun hasn't risen to heat the world and the heater has been shut off by someone in the night.

"You can go back to sleep, if you want." I whisper, tucking in close to Sam's side because she's warm and soft and just fits up against me where she's supposed to. Like she always has since we were little kids and I can't help but think that maybe we were destined to be together, friends forever, and yeah it's a little sappy but I can't deny that it feels that way.

"It's okay. I'm up." She yawns most of the sentence but I get the gist of it and it doesn't matter anyway because she's lying. I know Sam, better than anyone else, even better than I know Freddie, and while to the naked eye she seems mostly lucid, she's not. She's stuck in that place between sleep and awake that's like a vacuum of time and space.

She's stretched out on her stomach, face turned towards me but hidden by her pillow and her hand is resting in the negative space between us, the way her fingers are curling in my hair where it rests against the mattress absolutely involuntary. Our legs are tangled together, her limbs longer and a little awkward since she grew those extra two inches freshman year and where her skin touches mine is like an electric shock.

"What do you want to do after the year is over? This summer?" I whisper, tracing the gentle curve of her eyebrows and at first she doesn't answer, just takes a few slow, deep breaths while I follow her hairline with my finger. "My granddad wants me to come visit him in Yakima."

"Don't go." Sam murmurs and she opens one eye that hardly looks blue in the grayish light filtering through the blanket surrounding the two of us. "Don't go. I'll miss you too much."

And something I can't really identify swells in my chest at her words, like that trick that clowns do when they blow a balloon inside of a balloon. "And besides, with you gone I'll be at home all the time and then my mom will definitely try to make me get a summer job." She gives me a tired, pleading look and I didn't want to spend 3weeks in Yakima anyway. "Besides, don't you wanna be able to see your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, that's true." I breathe like the notion had actually occurred to me and the fact that it didn't is a little disconcerting.

"See, then you can't go to Yakima." Sam sighs, making her point.

"So what'll we do all summer, then?" I question as her eyes flutter shut and she shrugs the best she can lying down.

"I dunno. Nothing. Everything." She sighs deliberately twisting her fingers in my hair now. "As long as we're together than this summer will be awesome."

Sam says it so surely that I have no choice but to believe her.

"Cool." I smile, suddenly eager for school to end and start this awesome summer but Sam is slipping back into sleep and I watch her go before following.

* * *

"You're boyfriend can't dance." Sam laughs, loud and bright even in the stuffy, deafening atmosphere of the party she somehow talked me into going to and then showed up late to, leaving me to discover that dancing isn't one of Freddie's strong points.

I glance over at Sam helplessly who is getting a little too much enjoyment watching Freddie transition from the cabbage patch to the robot.

"I feel like I shouldn't be shocked and yet..." I sigh with a frown watching my boyfriend pretend to be a robot slightly off beat of the pounding music.

"So why aren't you out there making a fool of yourself with your boyfriend?" she asks rocking up on her toes to speak practically in my ear because the party is loud and it only makes sense but the way my heart skips that one beat isn't really as logical.

"Because these shoes are really expensive and they can't take Freddie electric sliding on them anymore." I say, watching Sam glance down at my shoes with a smirk.

"So you're just gonna stand over here all night watching Freddie do the sprinkler?" she questions around a smile and I give her another helpless look.

"Yeah, unless you want to give him some pointers..." I say and Sam's eyebrows lift in response.

"I'm not gonna teach him how to dance with you. He's got two left feet." She grins and I make a mental note to look at Freddie's feet next time the opportunity arises because he may in fact have two left feet and if so his movements would make total sense.

"I didn't think so." I chuckle, touching my hair. " I think I'll just hang out."

"Or..." she drags the word out in that way that means she's having thoughts and ideas.

"Or?" I say suspiciously as she shoves her hands deep in her jean pockets.

"Or...you can dance with me." She offers. "We both know I've got moves and I promise not to ruin your shoes." She says and there's something under her words or maybe its in the way that she says them, that tells me in this one instance she's not all cocky confidence.

"Okay." I blurt with out thinking and her entire face lights up like that time I bought her that entire honeyed ham.

The dance floor, the living room with all of the furniture removed, is packed and I have to grab Sam's hand so I won't loose her in the crowd as I lead us into the middle and my heart is inexplicably racing when I stop and turn to face her, I blame it on the stifling body heat.

Dancing with a girl is different than dancing with a boy because there is softness and curves where it should be hard and sharp lines and it's not like me and Sam have never danced before but because of the sheer proximity of people dancing, we're dancing close.

So close that my leg is brushing the inside of hers and if I dip my head just a little, my ear is pressed against her temple and I can feel her breath against my neck. I loose the rhythm a few times because the way my heart is stumbling out a beat separate from the music.

We dance until the need for punch becomes urgent and somehow between then and dragging Freddie off of the dance floor I end up in a game of truth or dare, smashed on a couch between Freddie and Sam and about a billion other people.

"I dare Gibby to play the rest of the game in just his underwear." Sam gets the words out amongst weirded out groans and Gibby has barely accepted the dare before his clothes are off and he's dropping back down in his seat between two girls in just his superhero boxers. I avert my eyes awkwardly and look at Sam who looks like she regrets the dare.

"Alright I dare Sam…" Gibby starts thoughtfully, scratching his chest and I shudder while the girls around him scoot away a bit. "To go seven minutes in heaven with…" I'm holding my breath and I'm not really sure why because beside me Sam is laughing. "Carly." Maybe that's why I was holding my breath.

Everyone around us cheers and when I glance wide eyed at Sam she's blushing and frowning.

"Wait! Carly has a boyfriend." Sam yells as if it's the main reason she's objecting but then someone calls Sam a scaredy cat, and a chicken and a bunch of other insulting names associated with animals and a general lack of bravery that I know will make her snatch up my hand before she actually does it. Ignoring Freddie's indignant cry and hauling me towards the coat closet near the door.

"Don't I get a say in this?" I yelp as Sam tugs open the closet door.

"Nope." She says simply before dragging me into the darkness and shutting the door.

My heart is thundering in my chest like its trying to beak out of my ribs while the first minute and a half is spent listening to Sam fumble around in the dark then light is flooding the small space and Sam is pushing coats out of the way and inadvertently saving me from being smothered to death by a dry cleaner bag.

"Are you going to kiss me?" I blurt and it must come off my tongue wrong, too eager, because Sam's eyes widen in the weird closet light.

"No, don't worry." She soothes a little but she's still grabbing me by the top of my jeans and towards her and I go, of course I go, breathing ineptly the entire way.

She catches me off guard and I just stand there as she spends the next five minutes making it look like we've been making out in the closet and possibly rounding second base, about to slide into third.

Her hands tousle my hair, scrambling through the strands and she does the same to hers before leaning over and dragging her fingers over my mouth and I steal a breath between her fingers because I didn't know I wasn't breathing and Sam looks at me very carefully as she smudges my lipstick before smearing the left over on her lips and a little on her neck.

"Turn your shirt around." She orders and I blink at her stupidly.

"What? Why?" I question even though I'm already pulling my arms from my sleeves and twisting.

"Because I'm an amazing kisser." She says like its obvious and I can't help but laugh a little.

"Seems like it would be easier if we just kissed." I mumble and the words are out and gone before I can figure out why I'm speaking them and Sam stops abruptly.

"What?" Her voice is low and I shake my head quickly.

"Um, nothing." I hiss and she's staring at me as the people on the other side of the door start counting down loudly and even after 1 we're still standing there and she's just looking at me so I snag her hand and shove open the door to our waiting audience.

Everyone cheers when we emerge except for Freddie who just looks concerned. I give him a reassuring look before Gibby stands, and accusatory finger pointed towards us.

"Hey! How do we know you guys really kissed in there?" He bellows in all of his shirtless glory and Sam squeezes my hand though I didn't even realize I was still holding her hand.

"Because I said we did." Sam shoots back and in the years, with a lot of therapy, Gibby has grown something akin to a backbone, made of soft cartilage, but a backbone nonetheless. "And look, her shirt is backwards."

"Well I think you're lying." He shouts and there's a round of gasp and I hang onto Sam's hand as she tries to shake free because I know the fact that I'm currently clasping Sam's punching hand is the only reason Gibby still has any teeth right now.

"I'm not."

"Well if you're not lying than kiss right now. With. Tongue." He challenges and I open my mouth in indignation because I'm standing right _here _and I should have some say in who's tongue is going to be shoved into my mouth.

"Shut up, Gibby or I'm gonna punch you so hard your mom will feel it." Sam says instead and I've never seen Sam back down from a challenge and I figure that's where that ominous feeling of disappointment is coming from.

After that Sam releases my hand, heading away from me, mumbling something about food and I go back to Freddie who is all concern on the couch, flexing my fingers over and over.

"Are you okay? She didn't…did she?" He asks, eyes scanning my smeared lipstick and mussed hair and I shake my head slowly.

"No, she didn't." I mutter, touching my lips absently.

* * *

"Do you think I should cut my hair?" The question seems out of place up on the roof of the Bushwell Plaza with the sun a hot, pink ball in the sky and I peer at Sam through my sun glasses, her focus on a strand of hair curled around her fist while the rest of her blonde hair blows around her in the gentle wind and she sits at the end of her beach lounger.

"No." I breathe, pulling my glasses back over my hair and digging my heels into the plastic of my own beach lounger, the ones Spencer gave to us to use up here, one of the cross straps catching the back of my shoe while Sam releases her hair, letting it join the other strands. "Why?"

"I don't think this look is working for me anymore." She shrugs, standing so suddenly that the back of her lounge flips upwards before clacking back down. "Maybe I should go brunette, or cut it off or get neon pink streaks."

"It still works." I call watching Sam head to the edge of the rooftop, leaning over and peering down to the street. My eyes find the curve of her spine, the tee shirt she's wearing riding up to show off pale skin at the small of her back and I sit forward a little, something sharp and sudden shooting up from my stomach. "No one ever suspects the girl with the blonde curls and the bright blue eyes and can you _please _step away from the edge?" My voice tightens on the end of the sentence as she tips over just that much more, throwing a grin at me over her shoulder and that little jolt is there again and I blame it on fear of my best friend tumbling to her death. "_Sam_."

"Okay. Okay." She mutters straightening and I watch skin disappear before she turns, eyebrows raised and smirk firmly in place. "So you think my blue eyes are bright?" She wonders aloud, hooking her hands behind her back and meandering back towards me and I shift backwards on my lounger, dropping my glasses back over my eyes.

"In a psychotic sort of way." I murmur and then Sam is jumping on top of me, the chair giving dangerously under our weight, and I only have time to squeal and recognize the swimming feeling in my stomach as the chair nearly flips before she slams my hands against the plastic straps holding the chair together.

"So the truth is finally out…" She declares, her voice loud in all the empty outside space. "my best friend thinks I'm crazy."

I grin up at her, fisting my hands where they're pinned near my ears. "Actually I said psychotic." I clarify, lifting my chin and Sam's eyes widen a little as she leans down a little.

"Psychotic?" she whispers like maybe she really has lost her marbles. "See now that really hurts, Carls." She stretches my hands upwards so they have no choice but to curl behind the chair.

"Well how else can I rationalize watching you try to make and market shoes out of beef jerky?" I question with a grunt as I lift my hips and try to throw her off on me but only succeed in nearly tipping us out of the chair.

"Hey, that was a legitimate business endeavor." Sam argues, fitting herself closer to me when I nearly spill us onto the ground again and something in me, behind my ribs, hitches when her chest presses to mine and I curl my fingers around hers and drag in a breath. "Am I crushing you?" She asks softly, peering at me and this close I can see the gray flecks in the blue of her eyes.

"Not really." I rasp even though it does feel like something is gathering and crumpling and crushing together in my stomach, like a knot.

"So I could stay here all day?" She questions and I lick my lips and shrug.

"All weekend if you wanted but I do charge by the hour." I joke even though my head is doing a floaty, lightheaded thing and she tilts her face upwards like she's thinking and a curl of hair clings to her neck.

"I wouldn't need an hour and besides this is Ted's this weekend?" She sighs and I'd totally forgotten this was the weekend she spent with her dad in his new house with his new family because of the custody arraignments.

"Lame." I mutter and she nods in agreement.

"The lamest but every time I visit I do something to his stuff. Last time I put mouthwash in his contact lens case, so that helps." She shrugs lifting my hands a little bit and every time I exhale her knees press into my ribs.

"Sam, you're supposed to be bonding with your dad, not inflicting guerilla warfare on your step family." I admonish and she rolls her eyes a little.

"But they're a bunch of freaks. His wife couldn't be more Stepford and his pervy step son is always hitting on me." She explains, her fingers squeezing my wrist for effect and I frown.

"Stepcest?" I laugh and she nods seriously.

"Yeah, and I'm not into that." She grumbles, shifting on my lap a little. "And I have enough to worry about getting passed between my mom and dad like some kind of _object _without my step brother trying to get into my pants."

"That is disconcerting." I agree and she nods. "So what pervy things does your step brother say?" I ask curiously and Sam lets go of my hands, grabbing the back of the chair instead and I keep my arms over my head.

"Just that he thinks we should be friends." she says and I give her an incredulous look. "What?"

"How is wanting to be friends perverted?" I ask and her eyes widen a bit.

"_Friends_, Carly." she explains and I just blink at her.

"It still doesn't sound gross to me."

"It is when he says it like this…" She says and then she's leaning forward and dropping her mouth right against my ear and when she drags in a damp breath I blink _hard _at the smears of pink clouds in the sky. "You know, Sammy." She starts in a low voice, her lips moving against my ear while her hand drops down to curl around my ribs, her fingers gripping my tee shirt and I take a shaky breath, that knot in my stomach pulling tighter. "I think me and you…" she trails off a little before starting again. "We should be friends." She sits back then and I just look at her.

"Gross right?" She questions and I nod stupidly, choking on my spit.

"Yeah…yuck."

"Anyway…" She sighs, pushing herself off of me and I watch her stretch, arms over her head and then twisting left to right to stretch her back. "Lets go inside I'm starving. Do you guys have anything protein based?"

"We have peanut butter." I offer pushing myself up and ignoring that knot that's still in my stomach, blaming it on something I ate.

"I was thinking more along the lines of meat, meat and more meat." She throws over her shoulder and I follow her down the stairs and back to the loft. "And for the record, if I had shoes made out of beef jerky we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

She moves through the kitchen with familiarity and I watch her for a moment as she finds a ice pop in the freezer and rips the wrapper downwards.

"So how're things going with the dork?" Sam asks around frozen juice with a gesture to the door and my brain shifts gears, directions, from a path that made me notice the way Sam's throat works when she swallows.

"It's going to be our 5 month anniversary next week so we'll probably do something fancy." I say with a smile and forced excitement while Sam frowns.

"Is that even a real thing? A 5 month anniversary?" Sam questions, tipping her head back a little to keep bright red juice from spilling out of her mouth.

"I dunno but Freddie wanted to celebrate it so…" I trail off with a shrug, heading over to the couch and dropping down and Sam follows.

"That's funny." She mutters and I give her a questioning look. "You're the dude and Fredward is the chick in your relationship."

I open my mouth to object but come to think of it… "Shut up, Sam." I say instead and she chuckles a little bit dropping down beside me on the couch, so close that our knees are touching and she doesn't move so I don't.

"Hey, you know what?" She mutters lowly as I pick up the remote and flip through the channels absently. "You're brother's kind of hot."

I glance at Sam who stares back unapologetically, her juice bar half of its original size. "Do you want me to punch you in the face?" I ask and she arches an eyebrow.

"That's a compliment. You Shay's are a good looking family." She says with a wave of her hand and I can feel the grin curling my lips.

"You think I'm good-looking?" I question and I watch Sam frown around her popsicle.

"I mean, you're _alright_. You're not a troll or anything and you came out of your weird looking phase pretty good." She mumbles and my grin pulls wider.

"You think I'm pretty." I sing song and she rolls her eyes.

"Look, all I'm saying is that when you add up all of the attractiveness in your family and divide by the number of people, the average for the Shay family is pretty high."

"Wait, was that a mathematical calculation?" I ask, slightly astonished and she shrugs.

"I dunno, sometimes things seep in when I sleep in class." She shrugs again and I laugh a little turning back to the television while she leans forward and snags a blue ball point pen from the table and replacing it with the bare stick from her popsicle.

She grabs my wrist, tugging my arm across her lap and I let her have it, flipping aimlessly through the channels while she proceeds to draw on my arm.

The roll of the ball point on my skin makes something just under the surface tingle and I look down to watch her scroll swirling, whirling lines on the inside of my arm.

"What're you doing?" I swallow softly and Sam looks up at me with a shrug and a smile before going back and then something warm and familiar is bursting open in my chest and spreading through my arms and I reach over with my opposite hand and push her hair behind her ear and I'm reaching awkwardly across my body just for the intimate gesture and I don't know why.

Actually I _do _know why. It's because Sam is Sam and it doesn't make sense in my head but it does somewhere in my chest.

"What're you doing?" She asks softly, blue eyes clear, repeating my question and I mimic her shrug because I don't know what I'm doing. All I know is that sometimes when I look at Sam, when I'm around her, there's a feeling that I can't describe or duplicate.

She stops writing then, tucking the pen in her fist and pressing her lips together thoughtfully and I just watch silently because I know what she's doing , fore some reason I just _know _and it's not as scary or terrifying as it should be. Well its scary and terrifying but not in the way its supposed to be and I manage to lick my lips quickly right before she tips her chin and kisses me.

It's quick and soft an her lips taste like the color red looks and it feels bright and vivid through my entire body like the color red too and she pulls back with a wince that makes me think that she's thought about this before but never meant for it to come to fruition.

"I'm sorry." She blurts, squeezing her eyes shut and swearing a little before standing and turning in an attempt to make an exit but she does it all with her eyes closed and I can tell from the sound her shin makes on the coffee table that its painful and she curses some more, hopping on one leg.

"Are you okay?" I ask breathlessly, my hands reaching out to help her but she stumbles back, hands stretched out in front of her.

"I'm fine. I'm just…I gotta go." She exclaims turning and reaching for the door and yanking it open.

"Sam, wait." I cry and she stops, whirling around and I don't even know what I want to say because my thoughts are strung into knots and oh my god, we just _kissed_. "I have a boyfriend." I yelp as the thought hits me and Sam winces again, taking a step backwards through the door.

"Let's just forget that this happened, okay?" She suggests with a nervous laugh. "And I'll just see you, uh, Monday or whenever- bye!" And then she's gone and I'm staring out the empty door at Freddie's apartment.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Freddie's deep voice is concerned and I shrug, hunching over my lunch and bringing my water bottle to my mouth quickly.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?

"Well you're doing your frantic, water drinking thing and you usually only do that when you're really anxious." He comments and I gulp down the last of my water, setting the empty bottle on the lunch table. "And that's like the fourth one you drank this morning." I grin a little at the fact that Freddie knows me so well and note that good boyfriends know these things.

"It is not my fourth and I'm fine." I sigh, pulling my lunch out of the paper sack in front of me while Freddie watches me with concerned dark eyes and I give him a reassuring smile. "Really." He looks at me for a moment before shrugging and digging into his own lunch just as Sam comes over and I try not to stare at her while she dumps her backpack on the table and drops down across from me.

"What up peoples?" she says in a completely normal voice and how can she be so normal after what happened and I'm sitting here blushing and stealing the water bottle off of Freddie's tray with a scrunch of plastic because just the sight of Sam is enough to make me irrationally thirsty.

I twist off the cap quickly, pressing the bottle to my mouth and I can feel the look Freddie gives me and Sam gives me a lazy, questioning look from under her bangs.

"Hey, Carls?" Sam starts, stealing my pudding from where it sits upside down on the table because she knows I hate banana pudding but I pack them for her and the gesture is so normal and familiar that I choke a little on my water. "Can I borrow your chemistry notes because Mr. Jordan says if I blow up one more experiment he's gonna make me repeat the semester." She finishes around a mouthful of pudding and I watch the plastic spork disappear between her lips before I scrabble for my bag.

"Yeah, sure." I mumble awkwardly, snagging my bag from the floor and fumbling it on the table and before I get a chance to even search for my notes my bag opens and there's an avalanche of water bottles across the table. I curse softly, scrambling to shove them back in the bag but Sam picks one up, twirling it in front of her questioningly.

"Carly?" Freddie breathes with a frown.

"Okay I've had like eight bottles of water this morning but what's wrong with a girl staying hydrated?" I cry, obviously startling Freddie who jumps a little.

"Are you okay, Carls?" Sam asks and when I look at her, her blue eyes trying to say something that I don't even bother to try and figure out because there are things in my head that are more important that I decipher first.

"Yeah, I left my notes in my locker. I'll go get them." I mutter, grabbing my things and leaving the lunch table and the cafeteria.

I take my time, dumping my collection of water bottles in the recycling bin on the way to my locker where I twist the in the combination then proceed to try to climb into the small metal box. I gets so far as my head, shoulders and arms but my feet are still on the ground and I feel like I need some screaming or some other type of emotional outburst, anything from crying to breaking into an intricate dance number.

But instead I find myself staring at the picture of me and Sam taped into the back of my locker. It's an old picture, the tape peeling at the corners, that Sam had stuck back there when I acquired this prime piece of real estate after she saved me from the locker next to the boys bathroom.

I wonder what made Sam do it. What made her tilt her chin just that extra inch and press her lips against mine and it's not like I'm mad or anything, in fact it would be easier if I were just mad instead of awkward and nervous and so, so scared, but I'd like to know that amongst other things. I wonder if she likes me maybe more than a friend, I wonder why the notion sticks into my brain more than it should, I wonder if she kissed me because I looked like I wanted her too. And its not like I was thinking about kissing her but I dunno…

"You're mad at me?" Sam's soft voice echoes around the inside of the locker and I'm not surprised that she followed me even as I shake my head though she can't see me.

"No." I answer honestly and I hear her shoes shuffle a little on the floor.

"'Cause I said I was sorry." She says softly, her words pinging off the metal around my head and I frown a little forcing a crease between my brows, a line that Sam usually smoothes with her thumb while she murmurs softly about frowns and wrinkles.

"I know." I sigh pulling my head out of my locker and glance at Sam leaning back against the row of lockers, fiddling with the straps of her back pack and she meets my gaze quickly before looking back down at her shoes. " And I said I'm not mad."

"Angry?"

"No."

"Upset?"

"No." I say peering at her and her hair is falling over her face and if my arms weren't shoved inside my locker and my fingers weren't curled around my history book, I'd brush it out of her face and tuck it behind her ear.

"Okay." Sam exhales with a nod, scuffing her foot on the tile and I lean my forehead against the corner of my locker.

"Okay." I agree quietly, "…So are you like gay or…"

"No," She cuts me off gently, looking up at the overhead lights, "I mean, sometimes I just…I dunno…" Sam trails off weakly, meeting my gaze evenly. "I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that." I chastise lightly and she smiles at me, just the corners of her mouth tipping upwards.

"So maybe we can forget all of this happened?" Sam asks and I swallow hard, a weird smile stretched across my lips because I know I won't be able to forget.

"Yeah. Sure. Already forgotten." I force, clawing harder at the book in my locker. "What kiss?!" I blurt the last part and Sam glances around nervously.

"Okay, so I'll see you later then? After school? Just give me the notes then." Sam asks and I nod. "Alright, tell Freddie he's a doofus with the body of a malnourished woman, would ya?"

"Probably not." I grin a little bit and Sam just shrugs, hitching up her backpack and I watch her walk away before releasing my book and pulling my arms out of my locker.

"Carly," I close my locker to reveal Freddie and his arched eyebrow. "Feeling better now?"

He extends his hand and I take it with a jerky movement, fumbling my fingers between his.

"Yeah, I'm okay now." He kisses my cheek softly and I expect that jolt, shock, of something but there's nothing.

And I know its supposed to be different with Freddie, I should be feeling all of these new feelings and seeing him differently but even now as I look towards him as he walks me to class all I see is Freddie and wonder why my hand is tucked into his.

Maybe its that I'm not trying hard enough.

That has to be it.

School drags by and soon enough we're piling into Sam's beat up car to go to my place and work on the web show.

"So, any ideas for the next icarly?" I ask leaning against the tech cart, glancing at Freddie beside me, then at Sam, who is lying down across the car seat Spencer built which means all I can see are her feet, pink shoe stacked on top of pink shoe.

"How about we do a segment where we review the newest computer games?" Freddie asks and I frown but before I can tell him he's a nerd in a gentle, loving way, boos fill the room, pouring out from the speakers mounted in the corners and Freddie glares at Sam's feet.

"Hey!" he cries, "Sam pressed the boo button."

I roll my eyes. "Sam show me your hands, Sam." I order and her left hand appears slowly, like a plant pushing out of the ground. "Both of them." Her other hand rises, clutched around the blue sound effects remote. I stride across the room, ignoring Freddie's triumphant smirk and grab Sam's remote. "Don't be mean." I say peering down at her and she just smirks up at me, tucking her arms under her head.

"Oh c'mon, you _know _that was a stupid idea." She laughs and I really hate when she makes me laugh when I'm trying to be all serious and stern.

I smile a little but I shake my head, using both hands to tuck my hair behind my ears. "Carls..." she teases, propping herself up on her elbows. "Look me in the eye and tell me that wasn't one of the nerdiest suggestions ever." And then she's sitting up and forcing me to look into her eyes, her hands pressing against my neck and aligning her face with mine and I look.

Her eyes are bright and shining and its nothing new because Sam's had the same eyes since I met her but right now her eyes are softening and her smirk is falling away and I'm just staring because I don't think I can look away.

"She won't do it because its not a dorky idea, right Carls?" Freddie says and Sam releases me, looking down at her knees as she sits back down and I step back and it feels like stepping out of a bubble.

"Actually, I don't think that's the kind of thing iCarly viewers want to see." I say softly and Freddie gives me a look of betrayal.

"Well, its not like Sam has any better ideas." Freddie sneers and Sam perks up.

"Actually I do."

"What is it?" I ask and she gives me that self assured look. "Two words. Banjo. Racing…" We manage to finish brainstorming without Sam making Freddie so I consider it a good day.

"Hey." I look up as Freddie comes into the kitchen while I pour punch into three glasses.

"Hello" I grin back. "Where'd Sam go?"

Freddie shrugs, coming closer. "I think she's in the bathroom."

"Oh well she better hurry because Girly Cow comes on in like two min-" Freddie's mouth on mine cuts off my sentence and makes me nearly drop the pitcher of juice but I manage to get it on the countertop before I kiss him back, parting my lips for his tongue and sometimes the idea that its Freddie kissing me like this is enough to make me nearly laugh because its _Freddie, _who's had a crush on me since we started junior high school. But he's grown up now and any girl would kill to be Freddie's girlfriend and I'm lucky.

I'm lucky.

He kisses me soft and careful and it feels good but something's not connecting and Freddie's tongue is in my mouth so it shouldn't still feel like kissing a friend. It should be more.

I'm acutely aware of the sound of Sam's footsteps as she bounds down the stairs and I hear her whisper "Whoa, daddy." Before I step back from Freddie with a blush I feel all the way in my bones.

"Sam I...do you want some punch?" I croak thrusting a glass towards her and my stomach is in ropes because Sam looks sad even though she's smiling.

"Nah," she draws out, averting her gaze, "Actually, I uh, I think I'm just gonna get outta here. Give you and Freddie some alone time." She says gesturing over her shoulder.

"Thank god." Freddie says picking up a glass and I glare at him before turning back to Sam.

"But an all new Girly Cow is about to start any second." I cry and Sam just shrugs, heading to the door and picking up her backpack, slinging it over one narrow shoulder.

"That's alright, I'll just catch the rerun." Sam says like we don't watch Girly Cow every week together.

"Well, where are you going? Spencer's making Spaghetti tacos tonight, come over for dinner." I urge and Sam just gives me another aimless shrug.

"I just have some stuff that I need to do so I probably won't be able to come over." She says and I rub my brow in frustration because whenever Sam has _stuff _to do it means she's doing something I wouldn't approve of, "I'll just see you at school tomorrow."

Her words sound strange, make me feel strange. "I guess." I murmur and she gives me what I think is supposed to be a reassuring smile before slipping out the door and I close and shut the door behind her as she leaves. "That was weird." Freddie comments, leaning against the breakfast bar, biting into a banana. "She sure has been acting strange lately." "You think?" I mutter and he nods.

"Yeah, somethings up with her." We hang out for a while before Freddie has to leave and I'm shrugging into my jacket and out the door minutes later.

And it not like I don't trust Sam to take care of herself and not end up in jail, its just left to her own devices she tends to get chased by the cops more than a normal person.

I send her a text message asking where she is and she doesn't respond so I check all of her usual hang out places. The mall, The Groovy Smoothie, the train station because she like to sit in the middle of the station while people hurry to their destinations around her.

Defying all logic I find her at school, the rear end of her beat up old car catching my eye parked halfhazardly in the parking lot.

I push open the door to the school and I know she's here because the door of nearly every locker has been dismantle, lying like a casualty in broken, blue, rusting piles on the floor and exposing the guts of the lockers to the empty hallways.

I wade through the dismantled metal, corners catching my shoelaces like they're begging for help as I pass. I glance at the insides of lockers, at stacks of books and smiling pictures, old gym socks and brand new Pear Pods.

I turn the corner and there she is, standing in front of a row of lockers yet to be ripped open and bare to the world.

"What are you doing?" I breathe, stepping over a teetering pile of doors and coming up behind her, frowning as she unscrews the last bolt from the locker she's working on.

"Nothing." She mumbles, as it falls loudly to the floor, bouncing once before tipping flat and Sam kicks it aside, adding it to the pile beside her and I nudge the pile with the toe of my shoe and it rattles. "Defacing Property." She says like its normal and I raise an eyebrow at her.

"Why?" I question moving with her to the next locker as she starts in on the screws with a screwdriver.

"I dunno, bored I guess." She shrugs a little, twisting off the nut and dropping it and I watch it leave her fingers and ping against the ground.

"You could've stayed at my house and watched Girly Cow instead of doing this." I whisper and she shrugs again, popping off another screw and dropping it with the other.

"I didn't want to interrupt you and Freddie." She says, chewing her lip a little, focusing, and I frown harder, wrapping my arms around myself. "And speaking of, shouldn't you two be toeing that thin line of abstinence right now while Spencer's out?" She asks with a grunt, the locker door falling to an angle, hanging on for dear life.

Her words sting and I wince, picking at the hem of my shirt. "Sam." I breathe and she works on prying off the door.

"What? Am I too late? Have you guys already done the deed?" She asks not even bothering to look at me but she doesn't need to because I can imagine her raised brows and disapproving look. " Probably just something else you wouldn't tell me about." She mutters with as the door finally looses its will and gives, crashing to the ground like a cymbal.

"No, we haven't." I cry incredulously over the sound and I watch her physically deflate, dropping down to her knees and shoving the door aside to the ever growing pile. "And I apologized like, a billion times for not telling you about me and Freddie when we first started going out."

"I know. I'm sorry." She sighs, all acid gone from her words and she glances up at me apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Why did you say that stuff?" I ask, lowering myself down beside her and Sam only shrugs, working on the next door like a distraction.

"I didn't mean any of it."

"I know." I murmur because I know that sometimes when Sam explodes and does things like remove locker doors for no identifiable reason and says mean things, its only because something is upsetting her. "But why did you say it?"

Sam just shrugs again, tapping the screwdriver against the ground and it dings loudly through the hall.

"You don't like Freddie, do you?" I ask tentatively and Sam's laugh is harsh and laced with absolute disbelief as she finally looks at me, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners with incredulity.

"Ew, no."

"Is that 'cause you like girls?" I ask, swallowing hard and Sam licks her lips.

"No, its because its Freddie…no offense." She smirks and I laugh a little. "And its not that I don't like boys its just…"

"Complicated." I finish for her and she smirks and nods.

"Exactly."

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" I ask, twisting my hands together nervously and Sam's eyes drop to watch.

"No, not right now." She whispers and I have to admit it hurts because there is something is going on that she can't tell me about but in all fairness, I've held a few things back from her too but we're best friends and we use to be able to tell each other anything.

"Okay, well do you wanna get out of here? Because Principal Franklin told me if I took the blame for you one more time you _and _I would be in detention for the rest of our high school lives." I sigh, climbing to my feet and Sam just looks up at me for a moment, blue eyes smiling and her bangs in her eyes and my mind flashes to when we were younger.

When I was taller and faster but Sam had energy that rivaled any pink drumming bunny with a battery strapped to its back. I remember always wanting to see her and think things haven't really changed all that much.

Sam sticks out her hand and I take it, leaning back a little and she pulls up to her feet.

"Yeah, lets get out of here." She says licking her lips between her words and my sensory memory recalls the feel of her mouth on mine and I press my lips together absently.

We head back to her car, leaving the demolished lockers behind us.

"Do you want me to take you home?" She asks as the car rumbles to life on the second try while I click my seatbelt into place.

"No, take me somewhere." I request and Sam grins at me, flipping her blond hair out of her face.

"Take you somewhere?" She repeats, peeling out of the driveway and I grip the door handle tightly and try not to scream. "That's putting a lot of trust in someone who you won't let borrow your shoes anymore." She points out, pulling onto a main street.

"Well that's because the last time I let you borrow my shoes you gave them back filled with gelatin." I remind and Sam just laughs like its hilarious and I still don't see the comedy in gelatinous insoles. "But other than shoe borrowing, I trust you lots."

"But what would your boyfriend think of you riding around Seattle with a notoriously unlicensed driver?" Sam asks and I roll down my window, a gust of window whipping my hair across my face and I tuck it behind my ear.

"Who cares…"

I don't.

I can feel Sam's eyes watching me and I ignore her, focusing on swallowing my frozen lemon lime slushy as fast as I can while Sam does the same.

The sun is low an heavy in the sky now and we're parked under an overpass while cars rumble above us and a chain link fence is the only thing separating us from a concrete channel with spray painted letters on the cement instead of water.

I loose. I always loose because I can't withstand the crippling pain of brain freeze for very long and I pull my straw from my lips with a groan and Sam stands up on the trunk of the car, doing a victory dance.

I laugh and wince, rubbing my temples, while the car bounces up and down and I think either the bumper is going to fall off or the transmission is going to drop so I grab Sam's pants and yank her back down onto the trunk and she falls with a thud, juggling her slushy a little.

"Stop that." I laugh, holding my half empty 64ounce cup in two hands.

"Oh c'mon, don't be a sore looser, Carly." She chides, bumping my shoulder with hers. "No one beats the Brain Freeze Master." I can't help but think that Sam is one of the few people that arrogance looks really good on.

"Hey, your tongue is green." I notice and Sam sticks out her tongue, grabbing the tip with her fingertips and eyes crossing a little in a strange attempt to look at her own tongue. "How's mine?" I ask, sticking out my own tongue and Sam tilts her head, still holding her own tongue.

"Looks good." She says through her own fingers before releasing her tongue and wiping her hand on her jeans.

I watch her lean back, spine curving along the glass of the back window and she rests her drink on her stomach. The sun is washing over her in, thick, golden rays and I have to turn so I wont stare and the fact that I simply can't look away from Sam scares me.

"Sam?" I swallow thickly and Sam just looks at me, the gray of her eyes more prominent than usual. "Why did you kiss me?" and it takes an unbelievable amount of courage to ask the simple question despite the fact I've been wondering since the incident occurred.

Sam looks away quickly and I stare at the tendon in her neck before looking away too, abruptly stop my brain from wandering and wondering and god, was it always like this.

"I thought we agreed not to talk about that." She mumbles and I shrug.

"I think it was more of a strong suggestion than anything else."

She's silent for a moment and my heart is more or less river dancing in my throat and then she's looking back at me, chin tipped downward a bit but she's smiling.

"You know, that wasn't the first time we've kissed." She says and she doesn't have to say anymore because suddenly the long forgotten memory of me negotiating Sam into a eight second kiss that was sticky and awkward but sweet, under the playground slide when we were 10 years old because, of course, we needed practice for boys, is blooming in my head.

"We were young." I whisper and she just licks her lips and turns away again. "You know, back then I use to write in my diary that I was going to marry you someday. Because you're my best friend and you're supposed to marry your best friend." I laugh and Sam's watching me again, eyes bright.

"Yeah, I know." She mumbles and I frown a little.

"How do you know?" I ask and she shrugs, her hair blowing a little in the wind.

"I use to read your diary." She admits and my mouth opens in horror.

"Sam!"

"I did it out of love!" she defends. "And I don't do it anymore…that much."

I watch a strand of hair catch on her lip and without thinking I reach out and pull it away and when my thumb touches her lip my brain automatically goes to kissing and teeth and tongue and oh geeze.

"You had a…hair." I croak and Sam looks at me wide eyed for a minute before sliding off of the car quickly, tossing her drink away carelessly and sails through the air easily, a spray of green juice following it.

"C'mon, lets get you home."

I don't realize until I'm tucked into my bed, that she hasn't answered my question. Why did she kiss me?

* * *

Weeks later and I still need an answer. I roll over in bed, dragging my pillow over my face and breathe as thoughts tumble around in my head.

I need to know why Sam kissed me.

Its been approximately three and a half weeks since it happened and instead of fading with time the memory just spins around in my head faster and faster like a cyclone. I pull in a deep breath through the cotton as the memory washes over me once again and the feeling that oozes over makes me grind my teeth together because this is new.

Its a new, startling feeling that I've never felt, let alone associated with Sam before but now its here constantly, taking up residence in my stomach and it doesn't care that I have a boyfriend or that I'm straight or that I'm terrified of it because it still twirls in my guts whenever I see Sam now.

I pull my pillow from my face, hurling it across the dark room and it hits the wall with a soft thud. It's later...or early depending on how you look at it and I need to get to sleep if I don't want to walk into school carrying bags around under my eyes but instead I'm laying here wondering what Sam's doing and that's not right because I have a boyfriend I should be thinking about and I do for a moment.

I picture Freddie in his bed, neat, stripped sheets tucked precisely around him and its there for a moment before fading and melting and twisting into something else. Its frustrating and nerve racking because I like Freddie, a lot and I want to be one of those girls for him, one of those girls that gushes over her boyfriend and wears his jacket and holds his hand but it doesn't come naturally so I pretend.

I pretend and fake things that aren't there and I wear a mask to be just like the other girls at school except when I'm with Sam because Sam is always herself no matter what and when I'm with her its okay to let that mask slip away.

Once again my thoughts tumble back around to Sam and its scary the way that happens. I roll onto my side and stare at my phone, resting just in front of my alarm clock and I debate calling Sam even though its after 2am because I can't sleep and its all her fault because if she hadn't kissed me I wouldn't have become an insomniac.

If she never kissed me that one time then I wouldn't be so, so desperately confused. I think if she just told me what made her kiss me then maybe I could sleep.

I reach out and snag my phone, flipping onto my back and dialing her number. The phone rings once, twice, three time before it clicks and Sam picks up. "Carly?" she exhales my name slow and low and I swallow hard at the sound.

"Why did you kiss me?" I blurt softly and even though we agreed initially to ignore it, I can't let it go and this marks at least the 8th time I've asked her since the event.

"Carls, its late." She murmurs and for the 8th time she dances around the question and I listen to the rumble of movements over the line.

"I can't sleep." I admit, stretching my legs slowly.

"Well, come over." She says like its the obvious thing to do and I smile a little in the dark.

"Sam, I don't think..." I start because in lieu of recent events I've been very careful around Sam, not that I think anything will happen, I just...

"Carly, c'mon." Sam yawns. "Get your butt over here. Its not like you're gonna get any sleep anyway so come over."

And like that I'm throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt and sneaking out of the fire escape with a little canister of pepper spray tucked in my pocket because it is 2 am after all.

I have to hop the fence to around Sam's house because the door creaks and her mom would go berserk and probably call Spencer to come pick me up. I tiptoe into the backyard and there's a ladder pitched against the side of the house, the top resting on the ledge right under Sam's window and I know she put it there for me.

I climb the ladder quickly but careful enough that I don't plummet to my death before my feet find the shingled ledge and I tap lightly on Sam's window. There's movement on the other side then curtains are being pulled aside and Sam is pushing up the window.

"Hey." I breathe, ducking into the room and Sam shuts the window behind me.

"Hey." She smiles, standing in front of me in a tank top and shorts that are blue and stop way above her knees and are…mine.

"Those are mine." I laugh, gesturing at the pilfered item of clothing and Sam looks down, her hair, wild from sleep, falling everywhere.

"So they are…" Sam mutters, like she just realized it and I shake my head and put my hands on my hips.

"You're such a thief." I grin and Sam lifts an eyebrow.

"You want them back?" She asks, thumbs pulling at the waistband and my mind literally blanks as I watch her thumbs disappear inside the stretchy band, pulling a little and there's a flash of skin but everything reboots after a moment too long.

"No, its okay." I blurt, licking my lips and Sam just smiles and walks past me, hopping onto her rumpled bed and I follow her, glancing around the room full of odds and ends and bright colors, muted in the darkness and the serene light coming from the television.

"Lets go, Shay." Sam yawns, gesturing to the space beside her in the wide bed and I smile a little, toeing off my sneakers and fighting my way out of my sweatshirt before dropping down on the bed.

"Why're you so far away?" Sam asks, clicking off the television and turning towards me and I shrug best I can stretched out on my side in the sudden dark and silence and Sam just moves closer, radiating heat and smelling clean and soapy, tucking herself close.

We lay in silence for a while, Sam on her stomach, face half covered by a pillow and I'm wide awake, staring at the even rise and fall of Sam's back.

"Why did you do it?" I breathe out the question for the ninth time because being this close to Sam, makes the inquiry spin dizzily in my head.

"Do what?" She asks, her words muffled by cotton and feathers and I make an exasperated sound that makes her lift her face and look at me carefully in the darkness. "Why does it matter. It happened like forever ago."

"Twenty five days." I correct softly and something I can't grasp flashes across her eyes. "And it matters."

"Why?" She asks and the question is simple enough but its not one I've asked myself and something unexpected dawns on me.

The notion is hot and bright and like sudden spotlight finding me.

"Because I think about it a lot." I start thoughtlessly and even as the words leave me and a dripping mess of sudden realization and cognizance, that this what's been wrong falls on me. This is what's been happening. "I think about it, about you, when I'm not supposed to, when I'm with Freddie."

Sam's breathing is suddenly loud and I frown as everything I've been feeling becomes connected and woven together and oh god.

"What're you saying, Carly." Sam demands like she's afraid of what I'm going to say and that makes two of us.

"Our hands fit together." I blurt like a crazy person and Sam's eyes widen and I'm scrambling out of the bed, nearly face planting on the rug when my foot gets caught in the sheets.

"Carly." Sam hisses chasing after me and she does in fact tumble over the edge, disappearing on the other side of the bed for a moment before hoping back up, rubbing her elbow. "Carly."

"Sam," I start and I can feel tears burning my eyes a little as I step into my shoes and yank on my sweatshirt. "I have to go."

Sam is grabbing me then, one hand on my waist and the other gripping the shoulder of my sweatshirt and she looks scared and confused.

"What just happened. I don't…" She trails off, pale eyebrows gathered in a frown and I'm thinking about kissing her, about fitting my mouth to hers and feeling that again and I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Sam." Her name falls from my lips painfully and tears are breaking free and I sniffle a little opening my eyes when the hand on my waist comes up to wipe at my tears softly.

"Carly-"

"Sam, I have a boyfriend." I cut her off and she looks concerned like maybe I'm loosing my marbles. "I have a boyfriend and I like the way your hand fits in mine and I don't know what that means."

She's still confused, understandably so, even as she tries to reassure me. "It's okay, Carls. I promise."

That's it.

And then I'm kissing her and this time its all my fault.

Her hands flail a little, flying up in surrender and I keep my eyes open against the jolt of what is most definitely something good as she shuts hers tightly and frowns but then she's kissing my back and her hands are on my shoulders, gripping and readjusting, trying to find purchase.

Oh man.

I pull away with a soft sound and a shake of my head and my hands are shaking hard as I head for the window, jerking it open and spilling out onto the roof breathlessly and my legs aren't working so great either.

"Carly, wait." Sam hisses and I hesitate, my feet already on the wrungs of the ladder. "Wha…whe…where are you going?" She finally spits out.

I wipe my face on my shoulder and lick my lips. " I'm going home."

And then I'm disappearing and running out of the yard, down the street to my house and the entire time my brain is screaming at me.

What did I just do?


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

A/N: So I finally finished the chapter after what seems like a lifetime. So read and review, tell me what you think and the last line is also the last line in a song called "Recessional" by Vienna Teng....Oh yeah, and I'm thinking of possibly writing a slightly less epic sequel to this.

* * *

I wonder how hard it would be to build a time machine.

It shouldn't be that hard, I mean, Spencer could do the designing and Freddie could do all the techy stuff and it's not like I'm trying to go a million years in the future or to Medieval Times or anything I just need to go back three days or into the future far enough where Sam completely forgot that I kissed her in her bedroom three days ago.

I've already started sketching the specs since I've been closed off in my room and in my bed for the past 72 hours give or take time for trips to the bathroom and to the kitchen for sustenance because if my plan to live like a leper, tucked away from everyone, is going to work then I'm going to have to eat.

The sketches crinkle under my pillow as I turn onto my stomach, pressing my face into the feathery softness in half hearted attempt to smother myself but the need for air makes me roll onto my side again just as my phone gives a somewhat urgent shake on the mattress and I don't bother even glancing at it because I know who it is and I know its not who I want it to be.

It's Freddie and it's not Sam and I don't bother picking up because Freddie is under the impression that I have some kind of highly contagious virus and even though I'm not sure if its his or his mothers crippling fear of contagions keeping him across the hall, I'm a little a grateful. A lot grateful. Because then he'd know that I wasn't sick but if I wonder if he'd be able to tell that I'm mostly dying on the inside.

Because Sam kissed me and I kissed her and all of this kissing has to mean important things, it just has to because that amazingly slow burn I felt both times her mouth was on mine isn't normal and since the last kissing incident, namely me loosing whatever sanity I had left and shoving my tongue into her mouth, Sam hasn't spoken to me. No call, no text, no telegram or messenger pigeon, nothing, though in all fairness my recent hermit like behavior probably isn't making communication any easier.

God, what was I thinking….

What the fuck was I thinking?

Wait, I wasn't thinking and that was the problem and that's how I ruined the best friendship I've ever had. All because I can't keep that feeling, that feeling I wish was just teenage hormones but is too high in my chest and too far behind my ribs to be that, under control. That feeling that I know now is that feeling that I'm supposed to have for Freddie but is only conjured up when Sam is around.

This is all Sam's fault.

If it weren't for Sam always acting as if I was important to _her _and treating me like I was different than everyone else, like I was special, if she hadn't kissed me softer and sweeter than she should be able to with all of the hard words she speaks than I would still be blissfully unaware of that feeling that's on the other side of friendship.

I wouldn't be the philandering whore with homosexual tendencies that I've become.

My phone buzzes again, angry and urgent, and I use my knee to knock it to the floor and it hits the carpet with a soft thud and I wish Freddie would just leave me alone. I mean its nice that he cares and all but I just…I need space to over think and over analyze and work myself up so much that I need to puke. Though I've been doing a pretty good job of it even with his calls.

I kick the blankets off of my legs because its two in the afternoon and the sun is beaming through the window and my room is full of sticky, closed off heat because I'm too lazy to open the window. I brush my hair out of my face and roll onto my side and think about Sam some more.

I play with the idea that maybe kissing Sam was a good thing. That it'll start something new, that we'll date and I'll hold her hand and she'll kiss me and it makes me smile into the arm tucked under my head because it causes the good kind of fluttering in my stomach and I don't even know if that's what I want but its okay to imagine it. Right.

I imagine telling Freddie too and the feeling that curls in the pit f my stomach isn't very pleasant and it only intensifies when I think about telling Spencer, my Granddad, my Dad. In fact the thought alone is enough to bring tears to my eyes and it wouldn't be the first time in my last three days of hibernation that I've cried and it wont be the last.

The worst of the tears are just starting when there's a knock at my door, soft and hesitant.

"Spencer, I'm fine." I hiccup, burying my face in my pillow and sliding onto my stomach and Spencer has been watching me like a hawk since my first day of hibernation and he'd asked me if this whole thing was because of menstruation which made me cry uncontrollably and him nervous because God, I just wanted to tell him but I couldn't.

The door creaks open and I lift my head to tell Spencer in the most polite way to go away and let me die but the words stick in my throat because its Sam. Its Sam closing the door behind her and looking completely uncomfortable.

Which is weird because Sam rarely ever looks uncomfortable.

"Hey." She greets, stretching the word awkwardly and I sit up in bed quickly, wiping at my eyes and sniffling a little.

"What're you doing here?" I ask rudely, "Not that I'm not glad you're here." Because God, I am.

"Freddie says you've been sick. Said you had something contagious."

"So you decided to come over?"

"Pretty much." She shrugs and I laugh, teary and thick, as she steps a little closer and when she shoves her hands in her jean pockets I can see that they curl into fists. "I mean, you haven't been to school in days and I had to make sure you didn't croak. Who else is gonna let me copy their math homework."

"You know you could just do your own homework." I laugh and she grins a little and moves closer, gaining confidence and I watch her eagerly until she sits at the edge of the bed.

"So you're okay? Not near death or anything?"

I choose not to tell her about the whole dying inside thing and nod.

"I wasn't that sick." I admit and Sam just nods, glancing around my rumpled room and I fix my hair self consciously.

"I tried to call. I didn't want to just come over." She says tucking one foot underneath her and I think about my phone probably lost somewhere under the bed.

"Since when do you need an invitation to come over?" I ask and Sam just looks at me, just gives me this _look _and I swallow while she turns away, her eyes landing on the crumpled lined paper jutting out from under my pillow before she picks it up.

"Whatcha building?" She asks with a smirk and I blush and shrug.

"A time machine." I mutter and nods like it's not weird, smoothing the paper over and over on her thigh before setting it atop the mussed blankets like its made out of something more important than paper and ink. "It's in the developmental stages."

And Sam looks good in layered tank tops and jeans and not like she's been crying and hiding and being broken and weird for the past three days and that makes me feel stupid and self conscious but it also doesn't stop me from gazing at her.

Her hair is falling in loose, heavy curls and her face is scrubbed clean and she's just Sam in all of her raw beauty and I stare. I stare instead of speaking even though its all I wanted to do since that night because words are jumbled in my mind, hooked together in life changing sentences but I can't even untangle them enough to voice them. No grunt or hiccup or burp. Nothing.

"I, uh,…" Sam starts and I don't think I've been more thankful for anything. "You're my best friend, Carly." is all she says and I swallow, picking up my scribbled time machine specs and crumpling them in my hand because I don't think I need them anymore.

"You're mine too."

"But, I liked kissing you and I don't know if it makes me gay or bi or an alien but I liked it." She says so honestly that she can't even look at me, her eyes landing on her fidgeting hands and I follow her gaze and swallow then swallow again. "It's confusing."

"I liked it too." I admit, forcing the words past my ever tightening vocal cords. "But I have Freddie and I can't…" I trail off, trying to grasp for words and its useless. "I can't hurt him."

"This is so weird." She sort of laughs and I nod in agreement. "So what do we do?"

"We should probably stop kissing." I offer and she chuckles, the sound low in her throat. "I guess we just ignore it. We just deal."

"Deal?"

"Yeah and just keep being pre make out Sam and Carly. BFF's." I whisper even though something in the back of my head is laughing and pointing at the absurdity of my statement because things are changed and do I even want to pretend this isn't happening?

"Okay." Sam agrees, mouth pressed into a thin line like it's probably not.

A week and a half later I'm absolutely sure that this whole 'just deal' thing isn't working.

Because things between me and Sam are sort of normal except misshapen in spots when I stare at her too long or I catch her watching me.

Because Sam's talking to Addison McAllister with his copper hair and matching eyes and she's laughing and all I want to do is rip his head off and use it as a punch bowl.

The arcade is packed and there's a dull roar of voices overlaid with bells and whistles from the games and I grip the mallet tighter in my hand, bending down a little and slamming it down way harder than necessary when the unsuspecting mole peeks out of the hole.

I'm on a rampage and I realize this even as I slaughter mole after mole, forcing it back into its hole and waiting for the next one to rise up but I imagine red hair instead of fur and a handsomely imperfect smile instead of square teeth and I hit harder. Over and over.

"Carly?" Freddie's voice penetrates my slightly psychotic rage over the noise in the arcade.

"What?" I bite out, swinging faster.

"The game's over." He says and sure enough no more moles are willing to come out of their holes and there's a ribbon of tickets by my feet. "I think you just got the new high score."

"High score? Good job, Carls." Sam smiles walking over to me like she wasn't just over at the basketball shooting game letting Addison teach her how to perfect a jump shot and apparently this required lots of touching.

And it's not like Addison is bad guy or anything because he's handsome and smart in the same exact under utilized way Sam is and if I'd been a good friend I would of hooked them up a long time ago.

Either way I hate him.

"Do you guys wanna get some pizza or something." Addison asks appearing next to Sam, tickets strewn over his shoulder and this double date was not a good idea.

"I'm always up for food." Sam grins and Freddie wraps an arm around my shoulders.

"Sounds good to me." Freddie says and I nod.

"Sure." I mutter but I'm looking at Sam through my lashes and she keeps looking back and Geez, I want to kiss her so instead I lean over and kiss Freddie's ear because we're supposed to be 'Dealing' right? I see Sam shift on her feet and look away.

Addison uses his tickets to buy Sam a Boogie Bear plushy and I want to choke him to death.

* * *

"Spencer is going to kill us.." I grunt carrying the last bucket of water into the iCarly studio and dumping it into the kiddie pool, the water sloshing over the brightly colored, inflatable edges.

" Spencer? The guy who built a giant coffee cup in your living room and then filled it with decaf is going to get upset about a kiddie pool?" Sam questions, a thick head band keeping her hair out of her face while she finishes blowing up the inflatable swim ring shaped like a panda, thumbing the air valve closed.

"You're so right." I admit after a moment as Sam comes closer and proceeds to put the floatation device around my waist and when her knuckles touches my bare stomach I'm pretty sure she does it on purpose.

"There." She grins, looking up at me and I smile stupidly. "Now you wont drown."

"Because that was a real danger." I laugh as she steps away turning to put on some bright neon green water wings that clash with her red and white bikini. And god, I'm nearly positive Sam didn't use to look like that in a bathing suit but she does now and I'm not complaining and I doubt I could be any gayer than right now.

"Okay." She says, flapping her arms a little before hopping in the water that only comes to her shins and staring at me. "What're you waiting for?"

I get control of my wondering eyes, which keep _drifting _to the flat of her stomach and smile. "I'm not." And then I'm splashing into the water and it immediately turns into a splash fight of epic proportions. The slosh of water and squeals eventually die down and then I'm just grinning at Sam and feeling blood pushing through my veins while she wipes water from her face.

"So," she starts while I smooth back the wet hair that escaped from my ponytail and watch her expectantly. "I've been thinking."

"Oh, no." I giggle and she rolls her eyes.

"Ha ha Carls. Now like I was saying, I've been thinking and I think and I know that I've always said that I don't want to college but I kinda think I do, now."

"What?!" I squeal in excitement because this is _huge_, this is life changing, because for as long as I can remember Sam has been against school and everything it stood for and I thought once she'd get the chance to be free, that be it but she wants to go to college. This is epic. "That's so great! What made you change your mind?"

"Well I mean, you and Freddie are going and I can't afford to go to a big university or anything but I figure I can do community college and get a degree." She mutters and I'm swelling with pride and beaming at her.

"But what about being an invisible ninja?" I ask and she gives me a very serious look.

"I think I can do both."

"This is amazing, Sam." I breathe, still smiling and she's blushing just a little bit, pretty pink high in her cheeks and I reach over and touch her knee under the surface of the water.

"It's not a big deal, Carls. I'm just extending my stay in this torture they call school." She mutters picking up a floating shark toy and making it swim around a little.

"Yeah, it is Sam. I'm proud of you." I exhale and she looks at me, blue eyes shining and wet hair curling around her ears.

"Oh, don't get all sappy on me." She groans, making the shark 'attack' my fingers in the water and I shrug, grinning helplessly.

"I can't help it."

She just shakes her head and I watch the way her long hair curls against her shoulders and the curve of her neck and the strings tied at her nape, keeping her bikini top on and I swallow hard and when I look to meet her gaze she's looking at me too.

"Hey." She greets and her eyes are skimming over me and I swallow back the tightening sensation.

"Hi." I croak softly then she looks away with a soft, knowing smile and I grin down into the water.

We stay in the pool for more than an hour, an hour that I spend blushing and glancing at Sam's thighs in the water until Sam complains about pruning.

"_Okay_…" Sam says slowly, the speed of her words matching that of the lone eyebrow making its way upward on her forehead. "What do I have to do to get that candied apple into my possession and then mouth?"

"Oh, you mean this candied apple?" I tease, lifting the bright red apple, its candied shell glinting in the kitchen light and Sam's eyes lock onto her target, tongue darting out to wet her lips and I blink at the action.

"Yeah, that one." Sam answers quickly, dismissing the fact that it is the only candied apple in the loft, the last one as it turns out and brushing her still damp hair out f her face.

I smirk absently, twirling the stick between my fingers, both my eyebrows arching to meet Sam's. "And you'll do…anything?" I question, adjusting the towel around my shoulders and pressing up on my bare toes.

Sam is bobbing her head before the words are finished leaving my lips. "Yes! Anything!"

"Hmm…" I hum, still spinning the candied apple and Sam's eyes widened as its orbit brings it closer and closer to my lips.

"What-what're you-" Sam demands leaning over the breakfast bar that separates us, hands curled around the lip of the wood. "Carly! What're you doing?"

I sink my teeth into the sugar deliciousness of the apple and Sam's face is full of pure betrayal and I'm taking it in with a grin before she hops onto the bar more or less like a spider monkey and tackles me.

I let out an extremely unattractive yelp right before we hit the ground and the candied apple slips out of my hand and tumbles into the dirty, dusty place right under the refrigerator. My towel flies and the towel that was initially tucked underneath Sam's arms comes undone and then we're wresting around on the floor in bikinis like a bad adult movie.

"Sam!" I grunt, wrapping my legs around Sam's narrow hips to stop her as she attempts to crawl over me and to the truly disgusting, hair and dust bunny covered candied apple. "You can't eat that!"

"Yeah, I can!" She groans, pulling away from me. "Five second rule. There's a five second rule!"

"When dust, dirt and or hair are involved the five second rule is null and void. Null and void." I declare tightening my leg hold and rolling so I'm on top of Sam who struggles a little more before giving up and her head makes a funny sound when she drops it back on the linoleum.

"That was mean." She huffs out and I grin a little and Sam always accuses me of having a slightly sadistic streak and maybe she's right. Or maybe this was all a brilliantly subconscious plot to get tangled around a swimsuit wearing Sam.

"I know. I'm sorry." I laugh and Sam squints at me appraisingly.

"That's not your sorry look." She mutters, closing her eyes in defeat. "That's your smug look."

I smile because I like that Sam knows so much about me, more than anyone else on the planet.

It's been a long time since we've hung out like this, just the two of us alone, because Sam has a new boyfriend and I have Freddie and we're both still trying to be normal and 'deal' and I can't tell if its working or not because I still think about her all the time.

I stare at her too long; feel the second where it becomes awkward tick by before Sam gives me a sheepish grin and slides from underneath my weight, standing and grabbing her towel and I just try to breathe and to quell the butterflies in my stomach

"So what're you doing tonight?" I ask pushing myself to my feet, scooping up m towel and the hairy candied apple and dropping it in the garbage while Sam watches from the couch with big, sad eyes.

"Ugh, that's such a waste." She groans, flopping face first onto the cushions. "And I'm going to B.F. Wang's tonight."

"Yeah?" I swallow, "With Addison?"

"Yep." She shrugs, mumbling into the cushion and I sit down on the stool in front of the computer, smoothing the towel over my lap and twisting to face her and I swallow past the tightness in my throat again. She exhales sitting up and she gives me a careless wave. "But its no big deal, just grabbing food at a Chinese chain restaurant."

I bite my lips somewhat guiltily because I don't want her to go. Because it's Sunday and tomorrow I'll have to go to school and watch her be with Addison, who likes to put his hands down her back pockets. I ignore the selfishness and speak. "Well do you have to? Can you not go?"

"You want me to ditch Addison?" She asks and I stand, adjusting the waist of my suit bottoms and I see Sam's eyes flicker downward and the look makes my stomach flutter like a dying bird.

"Well, yeah." I shrug and Sam licks her lips. "I just…" I trail off, scratching at my still wet hair. "I just want you to stay here with me. It's been so long since we've hung out."

"Freddie's right across the hall, Carls. I mean if you're lonely…" She starts gesturing over her shoulder and I shake my head.

"But I want you." I blurt and if I had been thinking I would have added more to that sentence so it wouldn't mean so _much _but its too late now because Sam is licking her lips again and I wonder if she tastes me there.

If she thinks about me kissing her as much as I do and Sam was right, I'm not very good at letting things go.

I'm thinking about kissing her _again _and I shake my head a little to clear my mind.

"You can't say stuff like that." She says, her voice thick now.

"I didn't…it just came out like that. I didn't..."I trail off hopelessly.

I sit down on the couch beside her, probably too close but I can't help myself. "C'mon." I grin hopefully and she straightens her spine, eyeing me.

"Okay."

We end up upstairs in my room, changed and dryer now, the door swung open and gaping just in case and sprawled on bean bags on the floor with Spencer's old headphones, the big bulky kind that cover Sam's entire ear, plugged into one of the stereo outlets and ear buds tucked into my ears in the other so we can both hear without Freddie's mom coming across the hall and telling us to turn that noise down.

I'm examining the CD booklet with the head of the band members photoshopped onto the bodies of fishes on what may be the worst album cover ever while Sam plays with the plastic that took me nearly ten minutes and a sharp tool to get off.

And I'm tying not to look at her because there's a song about a girl streaming through my ears and it doesn't even remind me of _her _but it's making me think about her and I clear my throat self-consciously, trying to get more comfortable on my stomach but its sort of useless.

The next song comes up and I'm reading the liner notes when I feel Sam's fingers pluck at the side of my tee shirt and when I glance down she's pulling at a loose thread and I have the ludicrous image of her pulling the string and my entire shirt unraveling like a cartoon but then string breaks and her hand is gone and I'm trying to find my place in the book. And I know logically every time she touches me, it can't mean something epic and important, it can't, but for the next few minutes I'm afraid to move.

Two more songs, one about partying and law breaking and another about a girl, and Sam is watching me. Her eyes soft and curious and so blue and she doesn't look away when I meet her gaze, just watches me evenly while guitar rifts blare through the headphones and I don't know what she's thinking and I think it might be for the best.

I give her a smile that's all confusion and she doesn't return it, just lets her gaze slide away and up to the ceiling.

There's a song about not being able to live without someone and I can't even look at Sam.

Halfway through track seven and Sam is watching me again. Or I'm watching her. Then she's moving, sitting up and leaning back on her elbows and she's close and I lick my lips absently. The song is building speed and so is my heart and Sam looks like she's very, very tense, so I don't move. Just clutch the book in my hand and watch her watch me.

Then she's leaning forward and the drums and bass are beating all the thoughts from my head except for 'Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.' and at the edge of my vision I can see her hands gripping the beanbag. Her breath is brushing against my mouth and I can't move and I can't breathe and this definitely isn't 'just dealing' or pretending everything is normal but that's okay. That's okay right now.

Her nose bumps against mine, once, twice, like she's gathering courage and I take a breath and just lean. Blind and helpless, I lean.

She tastes like too much sugar and _heat _and when she parts her lips and inhales against my mouth it reminds me of one of those cotton candy makers at the fair.

Her tongue brushes mine, timidly at first, then soft and curious and it feels like my heart is going way too fast and my stomach is tying itself off in knots and somehow all of this feels _good _and when I move closer my earphone pulls out of my ear, followed quickly by the other and then there's only the soft, disjointed sound of music sliding under Sam's soft breathing and the sound of kissing and _that _feels my head now.

But the door is wide open and anybody could walk up the stairs and that makes me pull away a little and Sam's eyes stay closed, her throat working before she sits up all the way, puling the headphones from her head.

"I'm sorry." She says after a moment and I twist my head to look at her but all I see is her back, the ridges of her spine a little visible through the thin material of her shirt. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not." I laugh a little because that's not what I meant to say as I sit up too, wrapping my arms around my knees and watching Sam tap her socked feet together idly.

"I like the way I feel when I'm around you." She says quietly, voice catching on something and I try to remember to breathe because now would not be a good time to asphyxiate. "And I just like kissing you.."

There are tears now, welling up and filling her blue eyes and whatever was beating its way up her throat finally escapes because she makes this soft, heartbreaking sound that makes tears spring to my eyes.

"But it stupid, it's so stupid." She continues, lifting her head and when she does the tears spill down her face in long, wet streaks. "Because you and Freddie are dating and if we just ignore it it'll go away. It's has to go away. It's probably just a phase like the blue candy thing." She offers with a tearful smile and I swallow slowly.

"That wasn't a phase, Sam. I'm pretty sure that was a full blown addiction." I point out not so helpfully and Sam rolls her eyes and sniffles a little. "Those things weren't even FDA approved."

"Then this isn't like that at all." She amends and she's trying to soothe me and make me feel better like her admissions are scaring me and they _are_ but not in the way she thinks. "It's like something that'll just fade away and we can forget about this and in 10 years you and Freddie can get married and I'll be your maid of honor and the two of you can live happily ever after."

"Is that what you think I want?" I ask in disbelief and God, _I_ don't even know if that's what I want and Sam just shrugs.

"Why wouldn't you? Freddork is a good guy." And now its my turn to shrug because I don't know how to answer that.

"I don't know what this means." She croaks, ending the silence and I swallow, lick my lips. Think about kissing her again because she's still crying and the tears are making her voice thick and dark before I push that urge away.

"Things are going to be different now? Weirder."

"Can things get any weirder than they are now?"

I think about kissing her again, like my brain is stuck on repeat, then nod.

"Probably."

"Hey, Carls?"

I glance at Freddie expectantly as I pull a glass from the cabinet for my orange juice because its early and Spencer doesn't like me drinking coffee so much.

"Is everything okay?" I freeze then, my orange juice splashing awkwardly into my glass.

"What do you mean?"

" I don't know. You just seem..."

"Absolutely normal?" I offer with a strange echoing laugh before turning and looking at Freddie.

"Preoccupied." He says instead, his words painfully accurate and I clear my throat against sudden tightness. "I mean, everything is alright between us? Relationship wise?"

And I pull in a breath, consider telling him the truth but my mind can't even fathom how that scenario would play out.

"Everything's fine." I lie and the plastic smile pulling across my mouth is a lie too but Freddie doesn't seem to notice and I realize how strange it is to feel guilty but not necessarily apologetic.

"Well do you wanna hang out today?" he asks in that completely flirty way he has that's all smirky and waggling eyebrows and I can't help but smile at him.

"Yeah. Of course."

"Awesome. " he exclaims. "There showing Space Wars episodes 1-4 including the Battle of Panthatar at the Premiere. I'll go get my costume..." he says excitedly and my mouth opens a little.

"Wait...what!?" We spend the entire day in a room with nerds in costumes and I spend most of the time listening to Freddie's excited voice and wriggling my fingers in his hand. And while being an extremely nerdy experience it still kinda nice to just hang with Freddie.

"So did you have fun?" Freddie asks hours later when we're up in my room and I look up at him from where I'm resting my head on his chest because this is a normal boyfriend, girlfriend pose though I'm not terribly comfortable.

"Besides the fact that I'm pretty sure I was the only girl there and everyone was staring and wheezing, yeah. It was fun."

"Imagine how cool the guys thought I was walking in with you." He brags and I laugh just as my phone vibrates to life on the bed near Freddie's knee. I pick it up and peer at the caller id and Sam's name flashes up at me and my heart gives an eager leap because even though I spent the entire day with Freddie and focused on Freddie I still thought about Sam a lot.

But I let it go to voicemail because there has to be a line and Freddie chuckles.

"What?" I ask confused and he just shrugs.

"That was Sam right?" I nod. "Yeah, I'm just not used to being put before Sam."

I frown a little, my stomach doing a sickening spin. "What do you mean."

"Nothing, its just that Sam has always come first. No big deal." He mutters even though it is a big deal because he's my boyfriend and he should come first right?

I don't know if its guilt or shame that makes me lean up and kiss him but I know it's a mixture of the two and a dash of self loathing that let things get completely out of hand.

And Freddie and I have talked about sex and wanting to wait till we were ready while there was a part of my brain that sort of silently screamed that I would never be ready and its silent screams find a voice as things get out of hand.

But I don't stop and in all fairness its over rather quickly.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I whisper softly, clutching the sheets in a fist against my chest while I sit at the side of the bed, toeing Freddie's blue and red striped shirt where it sits in a heap on the floor. "I'm fine." the lie slides easily between my lips.

"I didn't hurt you or anything, did I?" He asks from the bed behind me and I can hear the concern in his voice and the squeak of the bedsprings, can imagine the frown on his face and it makes me laugh in a completely unfunny way.

Because of course Freddie didn't hurt me. He's Freddie. He loves and cares about me. Hell, having sex wasn't even his idea it was _mine, _I made the first move, even though I didn't really want to but there are reasons and motives that I don't even want to think about right now.

"No, you didn't." I whisper, clamping down on the irrational laughter and this was a mistake. I feel it twisting around in my stomach like some dark monster lurking behind my appendix and I swallow hard glancing down at my sheets and wondering how I can ever sleep here again. How Sam can ever sleep here again.

"Was I…" Freddie trails off and when I glance over my shoulder he's watching me, sheets tucked around his waist while he sits at the top of his bed. "Was it…okay?"

"Yeah." I finally get out awkwardly and its not like I know how sex is supposed to be or anything but if okay means that it was only a little painful and it was over rather quickly then yeah it was okay. "I'm going to take a shower." I murmur gesturing vaguely towards the bathroom and when I get in there, shoving the door closed and locking it behind me I let the sheet I took with me drop after starting the shower and I stare at myself in the mirror. I stare at the marks Freddie's mouth left on my shoulders and neck and how messy my hair looks and the way my eyes look and I don't like what I see.

The water is hot but I don't turn it down as I stand under the pounding spray because there are things under my skin, feelings and confusion, that I wish it could wash away. It doesn't.

I don't realize how long I've been in the shower until Freddie knocks on the door and calls that he has to leave, that his mom will be home soon but he'll be back, and I don't answer, only listen for the click of my bedroom door closing before I shut off the shower and let water fill the bathtub.

I read somewhere that you can die from being in the water too long and I wonder how much truth is in that because now I've been in the water for hours and I can't find the strength to get out.

"Carly?" I must've fallen asleep at some point because Sam's voice pulls me awake and I realize dimly that I was dangerously close to drowning in what can only be called lukewarm Carly soup.

"Sam?" I hear the bathroom door open despite being originally locked and have the presence of mind to reach out and slide the curtain shut just as she walks in.

"Yeah, its me." She says and I can see the shape of her through the yellow duck shower curtain. "I've been calling you for like an hour. An ice cream truck flipped over by the bank and there was ice cream _everywhere_." I see her do a funny gesture with her hands and a smile pulls reluctant across my face because things have been tense and awkward but unlike me she's just letting it go. Not bringing up the fact that sometimes we kiss, hard and urgent in the dark, and I don't know if its better or worse. "But it seems like you've been in the bath for quiet a while."

"I took a shower first." I croak and I see her nod.

"Good for you." She murmurs and I watch her hop up on the sink, legs swinging just like a little kid but Sam's not a little kid anymore, her body is long and willowy and things that were straight lines have curves now and she's developing all over the place. "Plan on coming out anytime soon?"

I laugh strangely at her choice of words and I sink down into the water, letting it cover my mouth for a moment to squelch the noise.

"No." I finally say and the word gurgles against the water.

"Okay." She shrugs, "That's cool…so what happened? Why've you been in the bath for hours?"

"Because I'm dirty." I lie and Sam laughs at that and I know that its not particularly funny and I wonder what she's thinking to make her chuckle like that. "I had sex with Freddie."

I blurt it out because Sam and I are friends and I tell her everything, always, no matter what.

Her laughter dies clumsily and she clears her throat once, twice, and I watch her head drop forward. "Well then I understand the need for a very long bath." She deadpans.

"Sam."

"Are you okay? I mean, he didn't hurt you or anything because I swear I'll rip his…" She starts and I smile, shaking my head and my wet hair stick to my neck.

"He didn't hurt me, Sam. I mean, it hurt a little, but he didn't hurt me." I explain and she makes a noise of understanding in the back of her throat before hoping down off of the sink and my heart does a stuttering beat that leaves me breathless as she comes closer to the bath tub.

"Lemme see you're hands." She request and I push the curtain open a little and Sam is there, blue eyes bright and her hair pulled back uncharacteristically into a ponytail.

"I like your hair." I whisper even as I give her my pruned fingers and she rolls her eyes, her smooth fingertips sliding over my wrinkled fingers before sliding our hands together and I think about what I had admitted that night, that I like the way her hand fits in mine, before she pulls away.

"Get out the bath, Carls because I think you may be dissolving." She says and then like that she's out of the bathroom and following her is enough of a reason for me to drain the tub and shrug on my robe.

I find her downstairs at the kitchen table, picking at the red Formica like she's thinking, thinking, thinking and I find myself hoping she's thinking about me.

"Hey." I call, padding barefoot down the stairs in my pajamas and when she looks up she smiles and it looks like it might hurt.

"Hey mermaid." She says following me over to the couch. "How's it feel to be on dry land again?"

I just shake my head at her, dropping down on one side of the couch and she does the other and I think about how personal space use to not apply to us but there are boundaries and lines that we've created subconsciously.

My hands fidget in my lap because I can feel Sam looking at me and I wonder if the collar of my shirt hides the hickey on my neck, I hope it does.

"So…" she starts and I peek up at her. "You made Fredward a man."

"Yeah, I guess." I chuckle but Sam doesn't laugh, just pulls her mouth in a tight line.

"Good…job…?" She frowns a little, turning away and I swallow, pulling my knees up to my chest and hugging my legs.

"Thanks…I think."

"Yeah…anytime." She croak and I feel guilty even though I shouldn't because this is a natural progression of a relationship but I do and there's so much guilt surging through me that I'm surprised there's room for anything else.

"So…free street ice cream."

"Yep." Sam nods, frowning down at her hands and I watch them lace together. "I'm gonna get out of here."

"Why?" I question stupidly and Sam smiles strangely down at her clasped hands. "You just got here."

"Because I'm feeling a lot of… _feelings _that make me want to break things and I don't want to break _your _things so..." She explains easily through clenched teeth.

"Oh, okay." I breathe and Sam stands after a moment with a sigh. "Be safe."

She just laughs.

It's not working, the whole pretending everything is okay, charade isn't working because I'm sliding and falling and Sam is under my skin and man, I like her there.

And I know that I shouldn't want her the way I do, there a reasons not to want her like this, but I can't remember it when I'm with her.

The thought is clanking around my head nearly constantly and is more than enough to drag my attention away from school and Freddie and sleep, like now.

In fact Sam and insomnia are beginning to become synonymous with one another. And it would be so much easier to act normal and deal and focus on my relationship with Freddie if we didn't hang around one another 24/7 but the thought alone is enough to make my stomach hurt because I would much rather do this awkward dance around one another, tiptoeing between absolutely platonic friends and heavy, thick, moments that keep me up at night along with the late night texting conversations about nothing and we're one thing in the light of day and something else entirely at night.

My phone beeps softly and I pick it up from my stomach where its been resting in between aimless text messages I've been exchanging with Freddie and Sam's name flashes through the darkness at me in the caller id box.

"Hello?" I breathe and I'm already smiling into the receiver as I stare up at the ceiling and listen to air rasp over the line followed closely by Sam's voice. And it's the first time I've really spoken to her since I broke the news that me and Freddie had…consummated our relationship.

"Hey, what're you doing?" she asks and the wind whistles again and I can practically imagine her out in the cold wearing insufficient clothing.

"Well considering its almost 3 in the morning, I'm sleeping." I laugh and she laughs too.

"You don't sound like you're sleeping. In fact you sound wide awake." She sort of sing songs and I wiggle my toes under the blanket.

"What're you doing? You sound like your outdoors."

"Nice subject change." She laughs again and the sound makes my limbs tingle. "And I am outdoors, doing something you wouldn't approve of."

Her voice is bright and lilting and I want to know what she's doing. I want to be where she is.

"Why did you call?" I wonder aloud.

"I dunno." She verbally shrugs and I smile a little.

"You don't know why you called me in the middle of the night?" I ask and she laughs.

"Not exactly. No." Sam chuckles and she's playing with me and it makes me grin stupidly.

"Well I'm glad you did." I breathe and Sam sucks in a breath.

"Me too."

"Where are you?" I ask, all false exasperation.

"I'm at the Ridgeway." She says like its normal and I sit up in bed, throwing my legs over the edge.

"Ya know, for someone who hates school, you're there an awful lot." I tease and she groans out something I don't quite catch over a sudden gust of wind.

"Whatever. So I think you should come meet me." I'm halfway there by the time she gets the sentence out.

"How long are you gonna be there?"

"I don't know, a while."

"Don't leave okay?" I whisper, searching for my sweatshirt in the dark. "I'm coming."

Sam's silent for a moment like she's contemplating what a horrific train wreck of an idea this is before sighing, that sigh that means she knows its wrong but she's gonna do it anyway.

"Okay."

It takes me 10 minutes to get to the school and as I get closer the first thing I notice is toilet paper, reams and reams of it strung through the trees, hooked over branches and the white ribbons in the darkness is sort of beautiful. I can make out Sam, in jeans and a long sleeved shirt, hurling a roll of tissue into the trees and my sneakers crunch on the icy grass as I move towards her.

"Sam!" I call, peering up at her handiwork as I come closer, my gloved hands tucked into my jacket, clutching the pair of gloves, scarf and knit cap I stuffed in my pockets for her because just like I suspected, she's grossly under dressed for the cold.

"How goes it?" she greets breathlessly and I shake my head at her as we get closer taking her in.

"Did you do all of this." I ask in disbelief, still glancing upwards and she nods proudly.

"Yup." She shrugs and when I look at her, her cheeks are flushed and her nose is red and I pull out the scarf, wrapping it around her neck loosely, her skin is cold. "What're you doing?"

"Saving you from catching pneumonia." I say pointedly as I pull out the knit cap and pull it over her head followed by the gloves I force over her cold fingers, I notice the scrapes on her knuckles but I don't ask. "You're going to freeze to death."

Sam just grins at me like its not cold at all. "So what're you doing here?" she asks, flexing her hands in my grasp because I haven't let go yet.

"You called. You asked me to come." I shrug and Sam just eases out of my grip with a sheepish smile and I smile back against the cold, watching as she leans down to pick up a discarded roll of paper before thrusting it towards me and I eye it in confusion.

"What?"

"Oh, c'mon, Carls. Live a little." Sam teases, "and nothing says living like teepeeing something." Her eyebrows waggle playfully and I exhale, my breath condensing a little in the air.

"Sam." I start, shaking my head because I don't vandalize property, that's Sam MO but Sam is watching me with blue eyes and a smirk that's all challenge. "Give it." I bite out, taking the roll and hurling it upwards.

Sam is a bad influence, I realize this even as we begin hastily teepeeing the school. The soft, white paper floats across the night sky, catching on tree branches and rooftops and when we're done, breathless and laughing, the campus looks nothing like it did before.

"What're you doing out so late anyway?" I ask watching Sam catch a falling roll out of the sky before turning to me with a smile and a shrug.

"I dunno." She mutters, coming closer and I watch her expectantly, shoving my hands in my pocket so I wont touch her while she unrolls a line of paper and slings it around my neck like a scarf. "Couldn't sleep I guess."

I hum in acceptance, tilting my head to look up at our handiwork and Sam does the same.

"We did a pretty okay job, huh." I murmur and she nods.

"Yeah, whenever you decide to give up this whole 'good girl' thing. You may have a career in destruction and mayhem." She compliments in her own Sam way and I grin at her, peering at her in the cold darkness.

"Thanks." I mumble, glancing around and shivering and when I look back at her, ready to try and convince her that we should leave now, Sam is already gazing at me. "What?" I laugh nervously and Sam's eyes drop, her sneaker toeing the icy ground.

"You know what." She just shrugs.

I swallow hard, my eyes following hers to the ground and she scuffs her shoe once more before speaking.

"Wanna a ride home?" She asks breaking the tension and I shrug and glance around, tucking my hands back into my pocket.

"Might as well stay out since I've already broken curfew, snuck out and committed vandalism."

Sam grins, "I like your thinking." Sam's car smells like artificial vanilla, the smell too thick and too sweet, emanating from the two cardboard pine trees hanging from her rear view mirror and I reach out to pluck at one and it bounces and bobs on its elastic string.

We're parked under the same overpass in nearly the same spot because I can make out Sam's discarded cup beside us. "You're ruining my life, you know that?" I say around a smile and Sam turns her head to look at me from the drivers seat.

"Yeah." She sighs, all apologetic and my smile fades a bit as she presses her head back against the head rest.

I blink own at my hands for a moment to keep my bearings because this doesn't even feel like me and Sam. I rub my gloved hands together and Sam turns up the heat, tilting the vents my way and I smile a little.

"Thanks." I rasp over the rumble of the heater and she slumps forward against the steering wheel, face pressed against the horn and it gives a squeak before going silent and her blue eyes are watching me through the faint light.

"What're we gonna do?" she asks softly and she's asked me that question hundreds of times in different situations and I've always had an answer but not now. Now all I can do is look out the window.

"I don't know." I say honestly, glancing back at Sam who's still just watching. "I love Freddie, he's one of my best friends and I can't hurt him." I say honestly and Sam's mouth presses into a thin line.

"Ookay..." she drags out like its not really 'okay'. She sits back, pushing her hair back over her shoulders and straightening and I can practically see her pushing everything deep down inside of herself and its hard to watch.

"So, you're in love with him?" I balk then because for as much as I love Freddie, I'm not so sure about the 'in' part.

"I don't know, maybe. I don't really know." I mutter and Sam presses back against the head rest.

"Okay." She inhales. "That's okay." And her words crack and break around the edges.

"But I..." I start because I want to tell her that she's my friend and that I love her too and I'm confused but I like the way she makes me feel. Different than Freddie, maybe better.

"No." She cuts me off, closing her eyes and her hands curl white knuckled around the steering wheel. "If that's how you feel than there's no 'but'." She whispers through her teeth and I look at her until she opens her eyes and meets my gaze. "

I can't help myself." I admit and Sam's eyes shut again like everything is just too much and it is. It is.

"Doesn't make it okay." Sam mutters and she's right. "Are you gonna break up with Freddie?"

"What happens if I do? What happens then?" I throw back and were both silent.

"Things change." Is all she says.

"Yeah." I croak and she doesn't have to say another word because, fuck, change is scary. Its terrifying.

She's afraid and I get it, so am I.

She's afraid of being different and being raw and exposed and different without the cover of being "Sam Puckett" and I have to admit I'm just as terrified of the thought of leaving the comfort of being Freddie's girlfriend and straight and normal.

"What're we going to do?" I ask now, my voice scratching its way up my throat and Sam takes a deep breathe.

"I guess we should stop...kissing." She huffs in frustration and for some reason it makes me giggle, the sound catching in my throat. Sam opens her eyes to look at me curiously.

"You have a twisted sense of humor." She says it like she's exhausted and I stifle my laughter while she looks at me, blue eyes searching.

"I can't help myself." I say again and Sam frowns.

"From laughing?"

"From kissing you." I clarify. "I can't help kissing you." I watch Sam's hands readjust on the wheel, gripping it at 10 and 2 and I stare at her hands while feelings slosh around in my stomach.

"Maybe we can..." she starts tentatively after a long silence, eyes focused on the windshield. "If we just..." she stops like the words just won't come out and I peer at her curiously.

"Sam?" I breathe, chocking a little because I know she's going to say something important and because of this, my throat has decided to close off apparently. Great.

"If we just give in just this-this once it would be okay. Just for tonight." She finally whispers, fingers readjusting on the wheel.

"To get it out of our system." I add because this is a pretty bad idea, like epicly bad, like this needs to be made in to a B grade movie bad, considering that Sam and I aren't really that great with _boundaries _as it is and we both have boyfriends but my mind is ignoring those important bits and focusing on Sam and Sam's hair and skin and mouth.

"Yeah, exactly." She agrees, turning to look at me. "But then we go back to being just friends. Like old times."

"Like old times." I repeat, searching her face. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

There's a heavy beat of silence before I lean over the consol and kiss Sam, my lips touching her cheek and her ear and she readjusts her hands on the wheel before turning and kissing me. We end up in the backseat tangled up in an old, slightly musky blanket Sam found in the trunk and its sort of perfect. I'm kissing Sam slow and deep and she's letting me and making this amazing soft sound every couple of minutes and when I press my hips against hers because I just need the pressure, she pushes back.

She kisses me over and over, her mouth straying down along my jaw and her teeth catching on my bottom lip and I notice the difference when she kisses me, when she really kisses my like this, and how can I not? Because kissing Freddie is nice but kissing Sam just does something to me.

The sex is made up of awkwardly fumbling and trembling touches in the too small backseat of her beat up old car but I want to stay in the junk heap with her forever.

"Are you okay?" Sam exhales, her forehead pressed to mine and her lips brushing over mine and I lick my lips and touch hers too.

"Yes." I breathe because, with Sam's palm pressed tentative to my breast and her thigh settled between mine, I've never felt better. "Yes."

"I've never done this before." She laughs nervously and I slant my mouth against hers and grope my way up the back of her shirts, my thumb sliding over her ribs and the feeling that shoots through me, stomach to throat, when Sam presses her mouth to my throat and palms my breast tentatively and tells me that she's never done this before.

"Me either." I whisper but Sam gives me a look, "Well, not _this_." I amend rolling my eyes.

Her skin is soft and the way her sides curve in just a bit between her ribs and her hips makes me drag my shaking fingertips over them over and over. We kiss over and over and her eyes are closed when I peel off her shirt and mine are when she pushes my shirt up over my stomach.

It takes forever to get out of our clothes because _I'm _scared and _Sam's _scared and there's a point when I'm unbuttoning Sam's jeans when she asks me to 'Stop. Please, stop for a second.', but eventually I'm just wearing plain panties I wouldn't have worn if I'd known _this _would be happening and Sam's wearing these bright orange boy shorts and plaid knee socks and we're covered completely by the musky blanket, exchanging warm, wet, kisses over the pounding of my heart.

"Are you okay?" I ask now and Sam nods, the blanket moving with gesture even as I thumb the waistband of her underwear.

"Yeah, I'm just a little…a little nervous." She admits and I understand completely because my heart has taken up residence in my throat and my stomach seems to have migrated to my feet.

"I'll go slow." I whisper and she murmurs 'Okay.' as we shift around so that we're lying face to face on the narrow seat and Sam's sandwiched between me and the back of the seat.

She swallows hard and audible when I slide my hand down her stomach and into her underwear where she's all wet, silky heat and I gulp down some air too, pushing the blanket down so it pools around our waists.

"Is-Is that okay?" I ask hopefully and I think Sam nods but she's sort of curling into me so its hard to tell.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean, admittedly, I'm the one with more experience in this area but its not by much and its with the male of the species and I really wish I had time to like, study and look at some sort of diagram or blueprint because I don't know if I'm doing this right.

"Sam?" I breathe questioningly and she doesn't answer but she really doesn't need to because her eyes are closed and her hair is damp with sweat and her hips are following my fingers wherever they go, even when they rub in tight circles then triangles and when I start on parallelograms her legs tighten around my hand and she grips my arm tightly

"Oh god." She cries out in this soft, tight, voice that I've never heard her use and there's a split second where I think maybe I've hurt her but then she's bucking against my fingers and she's even more wet and I can feel the way her thighs are shaking.

It goes on for a while and I'm watching her and wondering if I broke her but then her eyes are opening and I grin.

"Hi."

"Don't look so smug." She rasps, "I'm easy."

"I dunno. I might be a sex wizard." I grin and Sam gives me this dreamy smile and her hands find my hair and urge me back to her mouth and she kisses me hard, tongue twisting into my mouth with the same tenacity and self righteousness as she does everything else and when she urges me to roll over, I do, though somewhat awkwardly on the narrow backseat but then Sam is over me and her hair is falling into her flushed face and bright eyes and I think, 'Man, I did that.', as she kisses me again.

Her mouth slides down my neck, over my breast and I don't think she knows that she's pressing her thigh between my legs and I push back shyly and try not to reveal how turned on I am, probably more turned on then I've ever been, but Sam's always been way smarter than she lets on and I gasp when she all but grinds into me, clutching at the blanket that's slipped to pool beneath us.

"Is this okay?" She asks softly and I nod, try to gather words but can't, but she gets the message and when she takes my hands, lacing them with hers and pinning them awkwardly against the car door, I breathe her name against her skin and hang on because it feels like I'll fly apart.

And when I do fly apart in sharp shards, with Sam's mouth against my ear and her breasts are pressed to mine, I don't ever want to be put back together because this is it.

This is all we get.

"This is it." I breathe after, _after_, into the thick, wet air of the car, the windows fogged over from our heavy breathing while mine and Sam's phones sit on the dashboard, lighting up every time someone sends a desperate message or call wondering where we are.

Sam looks at me from the other side of the backseat, leaning back against the door and knees drawn to her chest beneath the scratchy blanket and across from her I mimic the position.

Sam's eyes are red and so is her mouth and so are the marks on her neck and that's all because of me.

"It'll be okay." she reassures and I want to believe her but she sounds as sad as I feel and oh my god, how did we get to this point?

"It wont." I argue wiping at the tears that wont seem to stop and Sam licks her lips.

"It has to be." And she's right, she's right.

"So tomorrow I'm just supposed to look at you and not want you?" I ask and Sam gives me a contemplating look.

"I wish it were that easy." She sighs and I touch my hair absently, watching her watch me and as scared as I was before all of this, I realize I'm afraid of what's supposed to happen after too.

"I love you." I swallow and I've said it a million times to Sam over the years but I've never said it like _this_, I've never meant it like _this_.

She doesn't say it back, just looks away, and its probably for the best.

The sun is barely cracking into the sky as we walk into the Bushwell Plaza but she does, her hand laced perfectly with mine, palm to palm and clasped tight and I don't know why she's walking me home but she is and I appreciate it.

The first thing I see as I lead Sam into the lobby is Freddie, holding a picture up to Lewbert's face and asking if he's seen this girl which only elicits hysterical screams about his newly polished floors and shoe prints from the doorman.

Sam squeezes my hand just as Freddie notices our presence and he turns, holding up a god awful photo of me that looks as if it was taken when I was sleeping and he visibly relaxes, stuffing the picture in his pocket.

"Carly! Sam! Where've you guys been?" He cries rushing over and I cringe when Sam releases my hand with a shake. "We've been looking for you guys all night."

"We were just…hanging out." I lie, glancing back at Sam who just nods, arms wrapped around herself.

"Well I'm just glad you're alright." Freddie exhales and then he's pulling me into a hug that strong and secure and I grip his shoulders. "C'mon lets go upstairs, Spencer's gonna be relieved you guys are okay."

I pull out of Freddie's embrace and nod, tucking my hair behind my ears. "Okay?"

"Actually, I think I'm gonna head home. My mom left my 19 voicemails and god only knows what she's thinks I'm doing." Sam huffs and my stomach lurches sadly as I turn to look at her, swallowing hard.

"Call me later?" I ask and the desperation in my voice sounds so loud but I can't help it.

Sam gives me a broken smile, shoving her hands in her pockets and nods. "Sure."

Freddie reaches out and takes my hand, forces my fingers between his and Sam's eyes focus there for a moment before she takes a slow breath, taking a step back towards the door, and all I can do is watch her walk away while Freddie holds me still at his side.

And this hurts, more than I thought possible but I can do this. I can be Freddie's perfect girlfriend and I can be Sam's best friend and i'm like an actress filling a roll. I'm like a con artist, being someone I'm not. I glance at Freddie then Sam and wonder who, exactly, am I trying to fool.

Sam pushes the doors open, one foot outside before throwing me that thin, fragile smile.

"Well anyway," She says, "I'll see you around."

The End........


End file.
